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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404615">Fever Dreams</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongooseblues/pseuds/mongooseblues'>mongooseblues</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twin Peaks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cold, F/M, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Nightmares, Platonic Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, Sneezing, Whump, fluff with plot, i would never put coop and audrey into a romantic or sexual relationship so don't expect that</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:21:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,939</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404615</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongooseblues/pseuds/mongooseblues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A too-long love letter to Twin Peaks and sneezing and colds and David Lynch and Audrey Horne and especially Special Agent Dale Cooper.</p><p>Cooper gets sick, idiosyncratic cuteness ensues. Set toward the end of season 2 just after Cooper was suspended from the bureau. Some spoilers. If you're here because you're a fan of sneezing, there's some plot you can wade/skip through if you so desire. If you're here because you're a fan of Twin Peaks, there's some sneezing you can wade through if you're brave, but leave me alone about it if this ain't your thing. If you're here because you're a fan of both Twin Peaks and sneezing, please tell me because I love you.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dale Cooper &amp; Audrey Horne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I Can Usually Tell About These Things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you don't know Agent Cooper, here's what you should know about him:</p><p> </p><p>  <br/><br/></p><p> </p><p>He's a damn fine Special Agent who loves coffee, is enchanted by the small Washington town of Twin Peaks, is the purest most wholesome soul and played by Kyle MacLachlan at his peak hotness.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dale Cooper doesn’t get to drive very often. When he’s in D.C., the metro is a far more convenient and cost effective way to get to work. Driving in D.C. is also not a very pleasant experience. Cooper isn’t a road rager by nature, but he can see why drivers might be driven to madness there. Being poured from one loping traffic circle into the next and the next, like a hastily assembled track for a model train whose maker had access only to curved pieces of track and didn’t intend for more than a single vehicle to navigate it at one time, could make even the sturdiest driver frustrated and queasy. And no DC’ite will get onto the subject of street parking without a tired roll of the eyes, at minimum.</p><p>But Twin Peaks... Twin Peaks is a driver’s heaven, if there is such a place. The town’s roadways must have been pragmatically planned with both the flow of vehicles and the natural splendor of the area in mind. Uncomplicated main roads through the business district break off into groupings of smaller boulevards, from which the residential streets each splinter off like fingerling branches of some stately Cedar. Some roads were clearly paved after the fact to reach an older house on a hill or overlooking a creek — one could tell because when the roads would reach such grandfathered-in houses, they would simply end, or else the pavement would transition into well-worn dirt foot trails it could be safely assumed would lead to something even more beautiful.</p><p>There was nothing harried or hurried about the way motorists drove in Twin Peaks because there was little to harry or hurry them. Yellow lights meant slow down. Stop signs meant actually allowing the odometer to reach zero before removing a foot from a brake pedal. A crawling logging truck meant a little more time and opportunity to get your head on straight before reaching your destination, or simply to observe the picturesque views. </p><p>And conveniently to Cooper at the present moment, the mostly unoccupied streets and copious parking means his uncharacteristically late waking doesn’t automatically equate to tardiness. He pulls into the lot outside the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, steps out of the car and checks his watch as he makes a beeline for the door. Cooper is not technically late but there is a very specific window during which the percolating coffee would be at the ideal richness and he doesn’t want to miss that. </p><p>“Good morning, Agent Cooper,” Lucy chirps from her desk as she sees his rail-like form appear in her periphery.</p><p>He stops in his tracks and she looks up just in time to catch a quick glimpse of his squinting face before he ducks into the lapel of his overcoat with a shuddering "Hrr<em><b>IISSHHH</b></em>oo!" </p><p>Lucy is absolutely not expecting this and involuntarily jumps a little in her seat.</p><p>“Bless—”</p><p>"<em>ISSSHHH</em>uhh—” He comes up for air for a moment and makes bleary eye contact with her but his gaze immediately looses focus and a distinct line of frustration forms between his eyebrows as he turns back toward the middle distance, blinking.</p><p>"Bless y—”</p><p>Cooper re-buries his face and hitches into a last urgent sounding, “Hhh—hr<em><b>rRIISSHH</b></em>oo!"</p><p>"God bless you, Agent Cooper!!”</p><p>"Excuse me — thank you Lucy," he sniffles and smiles, "And good morning, I meant to say!”</p><p>“Allergies?"</p><p>"Well," he thinks for a second, "No I think my nose is probably okay with the local flora by now." </p><p>He sniffles decisively. "This is just an itch I can't seem to scratch.”</p><p>"Hate it when that happens.”</p><p>Cooper stops by the kitchenette to pour himself his morning coffee, takes a sip and makes a satisfied sound. The strength is perfect. Damn fine coffee, as it always seems to be in Twin Peaks. Why was the coffee so good here? The beans themselves were just one of those basic supermarket brands, was it the water? Cooper concludes that it absolutely must be the water before entering the all-purpose conference room.</p><p>“Good morning Harry, Hawk, Andy.” Cooper grins, scanning the faces of the crew he has, over his short two weeks in town, come to feel like a part of. </p><p>“Morning Coop.” Sheriff Harry Truman is bent over a spread of dossiers on the conference table, clad in his usual head-to-toe khaki, looking like the dutiful overgrown Eagle Scout he is. </p><p>Deputy Hawk Hill nods a greeting. Hawk is a full-blooded American Indian hailing from the Nez Perce people who occupied the area long before any white voice called it Washington. His knowledge of the area has already proved invaluable, and Cooper relies more and more on his unique wisdom with each strange turn of the Laura Palmer case. </p><p>“Morning, Agent Cooper,” Deputy Andy Brennan echoes, his face lit with the eager-to-please energy of a Labrador, and the lovable dopeyness to match.</p><p>“Technically, Andy, as of this present moment I’m not a special agent.”</p><p>“Oh that’s right I forgot.”</p><p>Harry shakes his head. “Cooper, like I told the committee, you’re truly the finest lawman I’ve ever met. I don’t care what protocols they think you broke, you’re still an agent to us.”</p><p>Hawk chimes in, “And once you present your case they’ll see that too. That badge will be back in your pocket before the weekend.”</p><p>Cooper is genuinely touched. “Hawk, Harry, I appreciate that more than I can express, thank you.”</p><p>As Harry fills the group in on the details of a tightly woven grouping of financial crimes committed by three of the town’s not-so-upstanding citizens—which has recently come to everyone’s attention after the arson of a certain mill— Cooper catches himself once again daydreaming. He imagines what his life might be like if he didn’t have to go back to D.C.; if he was somehow able to just stay here in Twin Peaks indefinitely. </p><p>As much as he yearns, of course, as a Detective, to solve every aspect of this case for good, when it became clear they still weren’t done after catching Laura Palmer’s killer, Cooper had to admit he felt a perverse sense of relief. And as much as he considers his work with the FBI to be of extreme importance, and as much as he knows there are other cases in other towns where he might be needed more, Cooper almost wouldn’t mind if his badge was revoked on a technicality. Harry would probably deputize him and he could just... live here. He could live here and work here and uncover all the strange and wonderful mysteries surrounding Twin Peaks, just waiting for someone with a particularly open mind to unravel.</p><p>He imagines himself wearing khakis like Harry, living in a house made from the same beautiful Douglas firs he can see from his front window. A house like that would surely have a yard. Probably all of the real estate here sits on at least an acre. He could have a yard with a wood fence — not so high that it obscured the view of the forest landscape from the window, but high enough that a well-trained dog wouldn’t run off too far. Because that’s the kind of yard suitable for a dog. He could have a dog, a German Shepherd like he’s always wanted. Maybe he’d call it Douglas after those beautiful trees, maybe he’d train it as a police dog and— oh no…</p><p>Cooper takes a very sharp breath, whips his head in the opposite direction of the group and manages to cover just in the nick of time as a horrendously ticklish feeling suddenly blossoms in his sinuses. “<em>HehhRIIISHoo!”</em></p><p>A chorus of blessings begin, which Cooper attempts to halt with a raised finger, face still hovering near his crooked arm. “Hold on, they tendtocome— err<em>RREHSHOO!</em> In threes...” His eyebrows draw back together as the third act ends in a vocal, slightly higher-pitched, “hehh-<em><b>IHHHooo</b>!</em>” </p><p>Lots of finished bless yous.</p><p>“Excuse me, thank you.”</p><p>“You alright, Coop?”</p><p>He pulls a napkin from the table and tends to his nose as politely as possible. “Right as rain, Harry.”</p><p>But Cooper has a pretty keen sense of his body and if he weren’t distracted by the possibility of his dismissal from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he would have paid closer attention to prior evidence of this other predicament. Sleeping into his second alarm — which was very uncommon for him — the need he’d had to clear his throat more times than usual when he got dressed this morning, the beginning of pressure building behind his eyes, obviously now the sneezing... It all amounts to some damn hard evidence and he feels like a lousy detective for not putting two and two together earlier.</p><p>It wasn’t a question of whether he was getting sick because of course he was, it wasn’t even a question of how bad it would be because the sheer rarity of the occurrence meant that, when it did happen, it was pretty much always quite bad. No, the real questions — there were two— one, how long would it take for everyone to notice? (clearly probably not long at all), and two, how long would it take before his symptoms became obnoxious enough to legitimately interfere with his work?</p><p>It really was something, though, to have coworkers ask so reflexively whether you were okay after only sneezing a handful of times. In D.C. he could sit in a desk adjacent to someone and sneeze dozens and dozens of times to eventually just hear his supervisor issue a bored but commanding, “Cooper, go home.”</p><p>The latter situation was nobody’s fault of course. An agent was culturally discouraged to allow anything to distract them from work for good reason. Their work was very important and dedication to the investigative process really does require one to divorce themselves from the equation.</p><p>The answer to Cooper’s aforementioned first question ends up being less than one minute as a persistent irritation again pricks at a very specific location in his nostrils and his breath catches in his throat.</p><p>“<em><b>HehhYESSHuu</b>!</em>” </p><p>This unfortunately occurs as Lucy has just innocuously entered to bring in the last round of morning donuts and she is startled enough by this sudden outburst to immediately drop all of them on the ground.</p><p>Cooper half-notices what’s happened and has time to feel a quick pang of guilt because that was quite a bit louder than he would have liked — it’s unfortunately always distractingly loud, like he’s demanding attention — but he’s much too occupied to offer a response yet.</p><p>“Hhr<em>rRIISSHH</em>oo!” </p><p>Lucy is luckily prepared this time, “Bless—”</p><p>His face has become one with the sleeve of his inner arm, “<em>Heihd’<b>IHHHOO</b>!!”</em> </p><p>“My goodness, bless you!!”</p><p>“Jeez, bless you, Coop.”</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Lucy,” he says as soon as he can speak again, scrambling to bring another napkin to his nose before bending down to help pick up the donuts, rest their poor souls. </p><p>“You’re getting a cold, aren’t you, Agent Cooper?” she asks as she catches him swipe the back of a finger across his nostrils one last time for good measure, “Because I can usually tell about these things.”</p><p>“Probably, Lucy, yes.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Friendly Interview</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't love this chapter, I promise this is mostly a Cooper/Audrey H/C fic just gimme a minute.</p><p>This part involves our sweet Special Agent paying a visit to a side character you probably don't need to know much about other than that she's a somewhat "unlikable" old money businessperson who dabbles in white collar scheming.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite the darkness inherent in his field of work, Cooper has always considered himself an optimistic person. Being employed by the FBI tended to make one wary of others — learning to tell when someone was lying or hiding something made it tempting to become skeptical of everyone. Cooper had seen a transition to this viewpoint take place in the minds of many of his peers while they came up in the bureau. He didn’t blame them. It was a natural inclination to assume negative intentions when your work surrounded you with examples—some particularly extreme—of people who inflict great harm on those around them. </p><p>And subjects tended to lie. Everyone lies. But Cooper found that many people who lied or hid things had good reason for doing so. Assuming these reasons were negative tended to create bias in the mind of the investigator. In his experience, people who left out elements of the truth often did so in order to protect someone. Cooper suspects this to be the case with Catherine Martell, even though she doesn’t seem to be in any way protective over—or really even affectionate for—any of the people she’s ostensibly closest to.</p><p>Still, as Catherine flits about her kitchen to make coffee for him and Harry, Cooper picks up on a sense of someone being missing from this routine. This is Catherine’s house, yet the supplies she’s going about gathering always seem to be in the second or third places she looks. The pot, when they’d come in, had been full of a good inch of leftover coffee, so it wasn’t as if coffee wasn’t being regularly made in this house. And Pete surely wasn't making it, as Pete knew so little about the making of coffee that last time Cooper and Harry had come, they were on the receiving end of an unspeakable culinary accident in which somehow a fish had ended up in the percolator. If Pete isn't making the coffee, and Catherine isn’t making it, who was?</p><p>Probably a good 95% of the people Cooper has interviewed in their homes have insisted on making tea or coffee for their interviewers, whether out of hospitality or anxiousness. While Catherine is doing a decent job of acting unbothered by their presence, she’s much less convincing in the role of hospitable hostess.</p><p>The house itself, beautiful as it was, harbored a sort of neglect. Not that it wasn't clean -- it was. It had the trappings of a happy home. Full bookshelves. Trinkets. Things on the walls. Many of the homes in Twin Peaks had similar decor. Pine cones. Bear statues. Coffee table books with local history, or descriptions of local flora and fauna. Wood for the sake of wood. The Martell home, in that way, reminded him of his hotel, or of the open house of a property for sale. There was a generalness to it, but very little personality.</p><p>There's also very little in the way of photos, which was telling, but the mutual unhappiness between Pete and Catherine was obvious to even the least perceptive individual, and Catherine's miraculous return after being assumed dead didn't seem to have relit any sort of spark. The pilot light on that one was out for good. There is one photo on the mantle that does catch Cooper's eye -- it's of a little redheaded girl, maybe five or six, balancing atop a massive log in the water, hands in the air and securely held by an older man who stands behind her. A slightly older blonde boy, probably early teens, stands on a nearby log holding a stick. There's a genuineness to the photo that's unmatched by any other object in the room.</p><p>"Is this you and your grandfather, Catherine?" Cooper asks as she brings a set of mugs to the dining table. </p><p>Catherine's faux entertaining hostess smile gives way to a genuine grin. "Yes it is. His name was James Packard.”</p><p>Harry chimes in as he chooses a seat at the table. "The man behind the mill.”</p><p>"My grandfather came here from Boston. He was inspired, apparently, by a vision of a beautiful forest of trees and waterfalls. He came here and that's exactly what he found. He purchased ten thousand acres of forest and started the Packard Timber Company.”</p><p>Her smile falters a bit. "The rest, as they say, is history."</p><p>Cooper continues watching her face intently. "Is this your brother Andrew? In the picture?"</p><p>She fidgets, looking suddenly uncomfortable — not the wistful or sad or fond expression you'd expect when you inquire about someone's dead brother, who, it had been said, she probably loved more than her husband.</p><p>"Yes it is. The coffee's ready!”</p><p>As much as he wants to continue the line of questioning, this is supposed to be a friendly interview, not an interrogation. So Cooper takes his queue to join them. She hands him a mug and he graciously thanks her.</p><p>“So,” she says, "How can I help you gentlemen?”</p><p>Cooper begins, “I’d like to speak about the Packard Mill, and what you were doing there the night it burned down.”</p><p>“I’d received an anonymous threatening phone call. A male voice instructed me to go there.”</p><p>“What was this person threatening you with?”</p><p>Catherine clears her throat, which makes Cooper also want to clear his own throat but he holds back. “There wasn’t a clear demand, but it was frightening. The threat, I suppose, was implied. An 'or else,' if you will.”</p><p>“What did they say exactly, if you can remember?”</p><p>“They said, ‘The mill, one hour. Be there.’”</p><p>“And you went.”</p><p>The steam from the coffee is beginning to make Cooper's nose run. He attempts to head it off with a simultaneous pinching of the nostrils and a hard sniff.</p><p>“Yes. Like I said, it was threatening.”</p><p>“Did you tell anyone where you were going?”</p><p>“I didn’t have the time.”</p><p>Alright, definitely something she's not sharing. Cooper hesitates, considering his phrasing but Catherine continues the story unprompted.</p><p>"I got in my car, I drove to the mill. I didn't see anything from the road, so I parked, got out and I heard screaming, which I followed. It was, as you know, Shelly Johnson. She was bound and gagged. I managed to free her but a very large beam fell and I'd become trapped myself... I wish I could remember what happened next, how I got out, but I honestly don't. I believe I blacked out from smoke inhalation. I woke up in the forest.”</p><p>Cooper manages to sneak in a few sniffles as she's talking, but it's quickly becoming an unsustainable situation.</p><p>"What part of the forest?”</p><p>"Maybe half a mile from the mill?”</p><p>It's a choice between sniffling really hard every so often, or a more frequent but surreptitious sniffling.</p><p>Catherine gets up for a moment and walks to the kitchen.</p><p>"Did you recognize the area?”</p><p>She returns and wordlessly places a box of tissues in front of him. Cooper is not typically quick to blush but that does the trick.</p><p>"Thank you," he says quietly, suddenly feeling very embarrassed and unprofessional. He takes a couple and attempts a gentle, polite blow, if one exists.</p><p>"It was night when I woke up, so nothing looked familiar. I believed that the person who had tried to take my life in that fire was still going to be after me. So I went further into the woods. I walked as quietly as I could and I just kept going. For hours, I think. Eventually day started to break and around that same time I came upon a cabin—our cab—a cabin owned by my family. It's in a remote location and I holed up there. I ate canned tuna for a week straight.”</p><p>Cooper really would prefer not to sneeze while he's there but his nose — terribly ticklish at this point — apparently has other plans.</p><p>"Eventually I realized if someone really wanted me dead, I'd be dead, and I—”</p><p>Cooper's breath catches and he cuts her off, holding up a finger, "Excusemeamoment—”</p><p>He ducks hurriedly into his elbow and crushes a vicious, "Err<em><b>REISHH</b>uu!"</em> into the fabric of his shirt.</p><p>"Oh, god bl—"</p><p>Another interruption: "Hei<em>YESHH</em>oo..." Cooper bobs forward with the force of one last sneeze. “Heh-<em>d<b>IIHH</b>hoo!!"</em></p><p>"Jesus, bless you.”</p><p>Harry gives Cooper a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder in lieu of an additional blessing.</p><p>"My goodness, excuse me," he manages sheepishly, blush hopefully maybe partially obscured by the tissues he brings to his face, "And sorry to have cut you off, Catherine.”</p><p>"Well, that's really the end, so it was well timed."</p><p>It's subtle, but <em>was that the creaking of a floor board overhead?</em></p><p>Catherine laughs suddenly, maybe a bit louder than necessary. "And actually, if that's all, I do have another appointment today.”</p><p>She stands up from the table and Harry and Cooper somewhat reluctantly follow suit. Harry is surprised Cooper's allowing the interview to end so soon but he probably doesn't feel very well so Harry doesn't blame him.</p><p>"Catherine, thank you," Cooper says. "I'd shake your hand but I probably shouldn’t."</p><p>Catherine laughs. "Well, sorry I couldn't be of much help. Take care, gentlemen.”</p><p>As soon as they're out of the house Cooper grabs a wad of saved tissues from his pocket and blows his nose less politely. Sweet relief.</p><p>"Hey Coop," Harry says as they get into the car, "Why don't you head home and try to get some rest? You've got a big day tomorrow.”</p><p>Cooper folds the used tissues and returns them to his pocket. "That is a very appealing proposal. Also, Harry. I think Andrew Packard is alive."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A Fine Red Handkerchief and A Note Slipped Under a Door</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you don't watch the show, what you need to know about Audrey is that her dad owns the Great Northern — the hotel Cooper stays at. She's displayed romantic interest in him (and is kinda pushy about it), but she's 18 and he's a federal agent investigating a case she's involved in, and he constantly has to tell her it's not gonna happen and keep her at arms length while she tries to test his rules.</p><p> </p><p>  </p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If anyone had told Harry that the way someone made coffee and reacted to a question about a photo was reason to believe their dead brother was alive, anyone besides Agent Cooper, he'd have asked them to point him in the direction of the wayward teenager who sold them the reefer. But Cooper was batting at a hundred on this case and Harry will believe just about anything he says at this point.</p><p>"We did find human remains on Andrew's boat," Harry remembers, "But they were too charred to identify, not even enough bone matter for dental records.”</p><p>"Probably someone who wouldn't be missed. A homeless person, a drifter maybe," Cooper says, taking a quick scrub at his nose with a napkin from a stack Harry had in the car. "Andrew must have been aware that an attempt on his life was going to be made well before it happened, and he devised a counter plan of his own. He had enough information to know the time and the place where it was going to occur. It's very possible he knew who it was that wanted him killed.”</p><p>This is all starting, Harry realizes, to not look very good for Andrew's widow, Josie, who Harry is unfortunately very much in love with. Josie was also supposed to have joined Andrew on the boat that day, but had stayed behind, citing a migraine. Harry knows this, Cooper knows this, Cooper is not going to point it out, Harry is going to try not to think about it for the moment.</p><p>Harry is a pretty perceptive guy, but before he met Cooper it hadn't really occurred to him to analyze the behavior of people who weren't under active investigation. Truth be told, he's learned quite a lot from Cooper over the past two weeks about investigative work. But Cooper is in a league of his own, and Harry's not about to start having prophetic dreams about giants and dwarfs like he does. </p><p>The fact that the FBI thinks it necessary to doubt Cooper's professional conduct has struck a nerve with Harry — if there is an enforcement officer alive with motives more pure, Harry hasn't met them. It's obvious to anyone who knows him that someone else planted the cocaine in Cooper's car, and if Harry figures out who that is he might <em>actually</em> engage in some not-so-professional conduct himself.</p><p>Harry was already worried about him, but this cold of Cooper's could not have come at a worse time when he has to defend himself against these ridiculous allegations tomorrow, and the steady increase in frequency of the poor kid's sniffling is starting to break his heart a little bit.</p><p>"If we find out who that is and why they wanted Andrew dead," Cooper says as Harry pulls into the station's parking lot and stops next to Cooper's parked car, "I think we just might discover who's financing a large number of the crimes in this town.”</p><p>"Glad to have that mind of yours on our side, Coop.”</p><p>Cooper laughs and it turns into a cough.</p><p>"Alright sniffles, now you need to go home and take care of yourself," Harry says, "But before you go…"</p><p>Harry reaches over, opens the glove compartment, fishes something out and hands it to him — a fine red handkerchief made of a smooth fabric—not quite silk but with a similar feel, maybe a blend.</p><p>Cooper looks from the offering to Harry. “I couldn’t.”</p><p>“You can and you will. If you keep using those napkins you’re gonna rub your nose raw.”</p><p>“Harry if you give this to me, I’m going to ruin it.”</p><p>“That’s what they’re for, isn’t it?”</p><p>“I suppose it is,” Cooper says, face lighting up as he re-examines a gift he feels more confident accepting. “Harry. Thank you.”</p><p>They exchange a thumbs up as Cooper gets out. Harry watches him sneeze his way to his car with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He hopes Cooper has some weird magical Tibetan cold remedies up his sleeve.</p><p>In traditional Tibetan Buddhist medicine, it is believed that the body contains three biochemical humours: wind, bile, and phlegm, and illness results when these humours are out of balance. The Tibetan practice for combatting a cold consists of two stages: the first is to "cook" the rising disease with heat as quickly as possible — to figuratively add fuel to the inflaming fire. Which is why, as soon as he gets back to his hotel room, the first thing Cooper does is take a shower so hot it's painful.</p><p>The steam from the shower also has the side effect of loosening his congestion, which results in him sneezing no less than a dozen times.</p><p>When he's done, Cooper puts on long pajamas and looks at himself through the foggy mirror in his bathroom. It has unfortunately become obvious that he's sick. He's going to have to pull out all the stops for this one. If only he had any of the herbs necessary to make Padma Hepaten tea...</p><p>But instead he settles for some chamomile with honey from room service, and banks on the restorative power of napping.</p><p>It's a weird dream, as they always are.</p><p>Cooper is walking through an inky black forest. Brush crunches with his footfalls and it's loud enough to drown out any other sounds. There's barely enough light to see where he's going, but he's being led by a walking owl the size of a man. Every step he takes produces a terrible, bone crunching noise, cacophonous.</p><p>The owl stops. They are where they are going. The speckled downy feathers that fill his field of vision suddenly aporate before him and he notices he's standing at the twisted mouth of Owl Cave. The owl itself is gone.</p><p>A figure emerges from the darkness. It's the Log Lady. She cradles her log, scowling, or maybe confused.</p><p>"Why have you come here?"</p><p>Cooper's face feels wet. His words come before he thinks of them. "I'm looking for answers.”</p><p>The log is thrust into his hands. He cradles it like a child. An incredible heat surges from the log and the wood starts to blacken and then smoke as it's engulfed in flames. The smoke is everywhere, heavy, wafting, bothersome. There's a seizing suddenly in his chest—</p><p>"<em><b>RIZZSH</b></em>uh!" He rockets forward from his pillow, having just sneezed himself back to waking consciousness before he fully realizes what's happening.</p><p>“Hrr<em><b>IIHHd'</b>hoo!"</em> He manages, groggily, to snatch the red handkerchief off the nightstand in time to direct a final sneeze into it. “<em>HeihyYISHHoo!!"</em></p><p>Cooper sits up in bed and cleans his face with the handkerchief. Some naps are restorative, some make you feel absolutely terrible afterward. This was the latter. His head and body are achy and heavy and he's starting to get that hazy feeling indicative of fever.</p><p>A little white note lays on the wooden planks of the floor. He unburies himself from damp blankets and stands up to retrieve it, the floor unpleasantly cold under his feet. The note is, of course, in Audrey's handwriting.</p><p>Agent Cooper,</p><p>I can hear your cold through the walls</p><p>Poor baby.</p><p>Bless you. Bless you bless you</p><p>bless you bless you bless you.</p><p>BLESS YOU.</p><p> </p><p>He chuckles and blushes without meaning to do either and sets the note on his bedside table. Cooper chugs the remainder of his glass of water and grabs his tape recorder.</p><p>“Diane, please excuse the sniffles punctuating probably every sentence I’m about to make. Also pardon the stuffiness in my voice, there are a few letters that are giving me particular trouble, such as e<em>N</em>,” he says with some difficulty, “and e<em>M</em>. I’m going to try my best to enunciate so that hopefully you can still understand everything I’m saying.”</p><p>He clears his throat and continues.</p><p>“Diane, I don’t get sick often. I have a strong constitution and am generally very healthy. In fact I don’t think I’ve had so much as a sore throat in the past two or three years. But on the rare occasion I do catch something, I tend to become quite ill. A very high fever is typically involved, which I can already feel beginning and am not looking forward to. However. The dreams that accompany that elevated temperature are often detailed and significant. I may come to some new—”</p><p>He stops the tape recording to sneeze another trilogy.</p><p>“Some new insights, I meant to say.”</p><p>He immediately stops the tape again because his nose still feels very itchy. Is he going to sneeze again? Yes, no? Yes.</p><p>Cooper inhales sharply, covers his face with his arm and presses his nose and mouth hard into the fabric of his shirt sleeve, now somewhat self-conscious of his volume and attempting to muffle it, but still sneezing a decently loud, “Hrrr<em>IIIISHH-oo</em>... <em>hehhYESHhuu!”</em> and finally a rather high pitched, “hehh-<em>YIIIHHH</em>-hoo!” </p><p>He grabs Harry’s—well, <em>definitely</em> now his—handkerchief, blows his nose, folds it, allows himself a quick sigh and a few sniffles, and picks the tape recorder back up. </p><p>“Diane, <em>sniff</em>, I don’t mean to whine, but I can’t seem to mentally overpower this. Pain, like the kind from my bullet wound, is localized. It stems from one location, and a trained mind can disregard it as irrelevant to the body’s other operations. I can simply recognize the pain as a sensation without categorizing it as good or bad and move on. But a bad cold tends to muffle all the senses I need in order to be observant and efficient at my work.”</p><p>“My eyes are blurry, there’s a sensation of fullness in my ears, my balance and spatial reasoning seem to be off, my senses of smell and taste are, obviously, severely compromised...” He punctuates this with a deep sniffle and reflects for a moment.</p><p>“Perhaps I do mean to whine.” </p><p>There’s a knock at the door of his room and a fear response momentarily triggers in his brain — an annoying remnant of having been shot in this situation less than a week ago. But it’s a timid knock, and Cooper is reasonably sure of the knocker.</p><p>“Audrey.”</p><p>Agent Cooper is visibly ill in plaid pajamas and a sheen of sweat. His dark hair, usually flawlessly gelled back, is damp and falling forward. She’s never seen him so disheveled. In fact she’d never seen him disheveled at all, he’s usually immaculately... sheveled. </p><p>“Aww,” she coos softly as she takes in his sweat soaked shirt, pinkened nose, fever blushed cheeks.</p><p>"Audrey I'm sure I'm very contagious, you probably shouldn't be here.”</p><p>But Audrey has no intention of going anywhere, and instead she reaches a palm to his forehead. Her mouth falls open in shock.</p><p>“God, Cooper, you’re burning!”</p><p>“A fever is a good thing, Audrey. It means my body is resetting itself to a temperature too high for viruses to thrive in.” </p><p>“Doesn’t feel very good though,” she says, leaning against the door frame.</p><p>“You’re right," he softens, a little quieter than his usual speaking volume. "Truth be told I do feel pretty miserable right now.”</p><p>“Poor thing,” she whispers, brushing his sweat-moistened hair back from his forehead. He knows he should stop her but instead he lets himself close his eyes as she tests the back of her cool hand against the blotch of redness on his right cheek.</p><p>“Can I get you anything? Tissues?”</p><p>“That would actually be very nice, thank you.”</p><p>“Do you have a thermometer?”</p><p>“No I don’t.”</p><p>“Alright I’ll find one of those too.”</p><p>Maybe he’d have told her that wasn’t necessary but he’s about to sneeze again and she’s already turning to leave so it’s a moot point.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. If You Wanna Be My Nursemaid You Gotta Get with My Rules</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aka <b>A Fever is a Good Sign Audrey</b></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It takes Audrey a good twenty minutes to locate a thermometer. No one in guest services knows where one is, and she spends some time at the counter drumming her fingernails on the desk and making the concierge anxious as, with increasingly chaotic desperation, various workers seek various other workers to ask.</p><p>Ultimately, having come up empty, the concierge suggests sending a bellhop to the pharmacy, or better yet, he ingratiatingly offers, he can procure it himself — which earns him an interrogation of whether he <em>actually</em> thinks that would be a "better" idea for the only person on call who knows how to check guests in to leave his post for what could easily become half an hour, and no of course he doesn't think that would be a better idea, or even a good idea, in fact it was a stupid idea, please forgive him. She walks away leaving him still wondering whether or not he's supposed to send the bellhop.</p><p>Audrey really <em>is</em> making a more concerted effort to be less of a brat lately, and she <em>did</em> promise herself she'd stop messing with nervous employees, but the sycophantic ones still get on her nerves, and she's always really disliked this guy in particular — something undefinable but annoying about his tone of voice.</p><p>Hospitality, namely one of Audrey's favorite hotel employees Lupe the third floor cleaning lady, ends up saving the day. Lupe, a trusted confidant especially when it comes to the subject of crushes, is told with a wink that it's for a certain FBI Special Agent who just so happens to be under the weather and isn't that almost serendipitous? Not that she's glad he feels poorly of course, that would be terrible.</p><p>Lupe, who has herself had a couple brief interactions with the Special Agent and observed him to be an uncommonly polite guest, also suggests Audrey bring a fresh set of sheets and blankets, and so Audrey returns to room 315 with a deluxe sickbed assortment and a heart that's beating slightly too fast.</p><p>Then Cooper opens the door (now wearing a different pair of pajamas — a blue silk set — that aren't yet soaked with sweat) and, when he sees the pile of blankets, says, "Oh gosh, thank you so much, Audrey," with a look of relief and gratitude and an adorable surprised quirk of the eyebrows that makes the whole ordeal more than worth it.</p><p>Why does he have to be so gorgeous? It really would be more convenient if the man she couldn’t have weren’t both wonderful <em>and</em> beautiful. It’s truly unfair — does God hate her??</p><p>She really needs to stop biting her lip so hard because there will definitely come a point where she draws blood.</p><p>"I absolutely needed dry sheets," he admits, moving to take them from her, but she pushes past him into his room before he can get his arms around the pile of starchy cotton.</p><p>"I'll help you change them."</p><p>"<em>S</em>-sounds..." One last-ditch effort at a voluntary syllable before the inevitable.</p><p>Audrey has nothing better to do than to watch it unfold so she does, head cocked as she watches a million little microexpressions play across his features.</p><p>Cooper is seized by a prolonged inhale, over the course of which his expression goes from almost confused to expectant to irritated as his lips twitch and pull back to expose teeth, jaw going slack, nostrils swelling, eyebrows pushing together, lashes fluttering shut. He crooks an elbow over his face and all but collapses into it, breath stuttering, “Hhh... <em>hrrESHHHoo</em>—“</p><p>He’s able to cycle through two quick agitated inhales and exhales before the third inhale becomes a propelling force dragging into the subsequent, breathily uttered and respectively increasing in both pitch and desperation, “<em>HeeihhYEIHOO! Hehh<b>YESSHH</b>OO!!</em>”</p><p>He’s a mess of sniffles afterwards but looks up brightly, “Woo, ‘scuse me — sounds good I meant to say.”</p><p>“Oh bless you bless you bless you I forgot I was still holding these!” </p><p>She sets the pile of everything on the bed and gives him the tissue box and during the handover their fingers touch for an exhilarating millisecond that, along with his grateful “Thaank you kindly,” sets Audrey’s entire stomach on fire all over again.</p><p>Cooper takes two tissues, considers, grabs a third, and steps into the bathroom to blow his nose at length.</p><p>Audrey meanwhile takes the opportunity to pull his bedsheets off the mattress and wow, he actually managed to soak clean through them. She shakes the fresh fitted sheet out of its folds and attempts to make sense of it.</p><p>“Which side is wider exactly?” She asks as he steps back out, nose now a deeper shade. If she had to describe the color she’d go with rose. It suits him somehow.</p><p>“That one, I think.”</p><p>“Yeah I think you’re right. I’ll grab this end, you take that one.”</p><p>Tucking the corners over the head-end of the mattress is a bit of an inconvenience due to the placement of the nightstand which requires Cooper to lean very far over and when he stands back up he’s suddenly so off-balance and woozy he has to scramble to reach a hand to the wall for support, knocking a hip into the nightstand and sending a decorative wooden doll noisily skittering across the floor in the process.</p><p>Audrey appears at his side and grabs his other arm with a grip stronger than he considered her capable of.</p><p>"Sorry," he mumbles, "Little dizzy."</p><p>“Hey,” her voice is soft, “Have you eaten anything today?”</p><p>“Um... not really, what time is it?”</p><p>“Almost six.”</p><p>He’d closed the curtains before napping and this is news to him. </p><p>“You might not have much of an appetite but you need to eat, okay? I’ll order you something from room service, but in the meantime will you lie down before you fall down, please? Because you’re really tall and I don’t know if I could catch you.”</p><p>Her switch into this pragmatic-but-gentle tone of voice echoes a maternal familiarity that reminds Cooper of a grade school nurse and simultaneously makes him feel very safe and compels him to defer to her judgment.</p><p>He smiles, quietly says “Okay.”</p><p>Audrey shakes the other sheet out and Cooper does as instructed as she finishes making the bed around him. She stuffs pillows into fresh pillowcases and positions them so he can lie back as his sense of the room’s rotation dials down in velocity.</p><p>“Still dizzy?” She asks, composing herself next to him as she picks up the phone and punches in the number for room service.</p><p>“It’s dissipating.” </p><p>“Chicken noodle soup?”</p><p>“Gosh, that sounds wonderful.”</p><p>Audrey orders the soup and also asks for a pitcher of water. Cooper insists she get something for herself too despite her insistence that she's already eaten so she finally relents and orders fries. Once she hangs up, she turns to Cooper, drawing her knees up onto the bed and absolutely beaming but trying not to because he is truly right where she wants him. What a convenient excuse to get close to him. How much can she get away with? Like, how much exactly?</p><p>"Now can we take your temperature?" The sentence begins innocently but doesn't end that way, "You're sweating through that shirt already, do you want to take it off? It might be more comfortable…”</p><p>“Audrey,” he says as if reading her thoughts, “If you’re going to be my nursemaid we’re going to need to set some ground rules.”</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>“Like you and I are both going to remain fully clothed at all times.”</p><p>Well goddamnit.</p><p>“Also, it’s probably best if you don’t touch me more than is necessary.”</p><p>Audrey, who is currently stroking Cooper’s hair, pushes one last damp strand back from his forehead and retracts her hand to settle it on his chest instead. </p><p>“Audrey,” he says warningly, “I mean it.”</p><p>“Okay, okay.” She relents, lifting both hands up in surrender.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“Is that it?”</p><p>“That’s all I can think of right now, but I reserve the right to add other rules later, which I hope you’ll also respect.”</p><p>"<em>Now</em> can we take your temperature?"</p><p>He’s pretty bemused by her odd excitement over this, but shakes his head yes.</p><p>Audrey retrieves the thermometer and briefly shakes it like she’d once seen someone do in a movie, "Ready?"</p><p>“Not quite...“ he turns away from her and hurriedly grabs a couple tissues.</p><p>She looks up, “Oh are you going to—“</p><p>“—<em><b>ERR</b>shoo! ...hrrrESSHHuhh!!</em>” These are particularly violent and he can feel it in his ribs, still healing from being broken last week — this cold (or flu maybe?) is starting to wear through his mind-over-body resolve and the pain he thought he had mentally vanquished is becoming a nuisance again, which is unexpected and annoying.</p><p>He looks up for a moment, tissues still cupped around his nose and mouth, takes a big breath, “<em>Hihh!</em>..” nope, little early, “<em>Hurr<b>REZSSHH</b></em>ue!!” Ugh, ouch.</p><p>“Bless you bless you bless you.”</p><p>Cooper catches his breath, “Guh, thankyouthankyouthankyou.”</p><p>“Always in threes, huh?”</p><p>He blinks away the bleariness, employs the back of his hand in an attempt to scrub the residual itchiness from his nose. “Every time.”</p><p>She raises the thermometer, “Ready now?”</p><p>“I think so,” he sniffles.</p><p>“You sure you don’t need to sneeze three more times?”</p><p>He laughs. “Not right now.”</p><p>She brandishes the thermometer and he opens his mouth but she notices his nose twitch and stops at the last second with a cheeky grin.</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>“Audrey if you wait much longer I probably am going to need to sneeze three more times.”</p><p>They’re both chuckling. “Alright open your mouth stop laughing.”</p><p>She finally tucks the thermometer under his tongue and he looks away from her to keep from laughing again. This is fun <em>why is this fun??</em> Should he really be with her when he’s in this condition? Probably not. Cooper doesn’t really drink but this fever and its associated haziness would probably qualify as him being under <em>an</em> influence, and the generally distracting and fatiguing nature of the recurrent bouts of sneezing added another blurring effect onto that.</p><p>There was surely something rather a little too intimate going on here that he can't quite put his finger on and he doesn’t feel good about that, but Audrey was more sensitive than she appeared and turning her away wouldn't do either of them any good. Plus she <em>had</em> been letting up a bit on the flirtation as time went on and she'd agreed to his ground rules so perhaps this was innocent enough? He hopes so, at least.</p><p>After a moment, she checks an imaginary watch, “Um. How long was this supposed to be?”</p><p>He holds up a finger and waits maybe fifteen more seconds before removing the thermometer from his mouth. She motions for him to hand it to her and he does. He watches as her face studies the tiny numbers within the glass. He guesses that it’s higher than 102 but maybe not quite as high as 103. </p><p>“Oh Cooper,” she coos, “One hundred and three point three...” Her eyes are shining with sympathy, “I knew you felt really hot but that’s higher than I realized, you must feel terrible. Should I call for Doc Hayward?”</p><p>“No, it’s alright. A fever is a good sign, Audrey.”</p><p>“I know but that seems really high to me.”</p><p>“Audrey, if I was a betting man I’d wager it’ll get to one-oh-four by tomorrow.” It might even reach 105 at some point but he’ll keep that to himself.</p><p>“But you’re not a betting man and I like that about you.”</p><p>Cooper doesn’t know what to say to that so he just smiles slightly in a way that he hopes conveys something closer to “I appreciate you” than “I like you too.” His goal is always to placate but not encourage her but it’s getting harder to balance because he’s exhausted and appreciates her kindness in a way he could never properly convey to her, and also because he really does just want someone to place a very cool hand on his very hot face when he’s sick, and ideally not have to stop them.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chicken Soup and Secret Rooms: A Slightly Sad Bedtime Story</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'll warn yall in advance I got a lil carried away with this part and the chapter ends in a way that is not super sneeze-heavy, bc I got fixated while writing about Audrey. If you're not here for the plot feel free to skip Audrey's little story, I won't be offended ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Room service arrives with the food and Cooper scrambles to retrieve a five dollar bill from his wallet so Audrey can tip the young man who brings it, which she finds sweet — her father doesn't even tip that well and he's definitely far wealthier than Cooper possibly could be on a government salary — but also kind of ironic because she knows this bellhop is generally quite incompetent and on multiple occasions she's herself told him so in such certain terms that when he sees her now and all she says is thanks so much and gives him a five dollar tip he looks like a bewildered deer.</p><p>But Cooper doesn't need to know about that.</p><p>Audrey again has to reiterate that she really did eat dinner already and promise that she's not neglecting her own health to service his before Cooper obediently begins wolfing down his food.</p><p>"How's the soup?”</p><p>"Well I can't really taste much of anything, <em>snff</em>, but I highly suspect it's quite good.”</p><p>"That's what your detective instincts are telling you?”</p><p>Cooper chuckles, which quickly morphs into some coughing, earning another "Aww" and concerned frown from Audrey over the plate of fries she's sort of picking at.</p><p>"I'll have to try it again some other time for a more accurate review, but generally if it makes your nose run you know it's a good soup.”</p><p>"Well anything you ate right now would make your nose run, silly.”</p><p>"That's probably true.”</p><p>"Wanna test my theory? Because I really don't want the rest of these fries, will you eat them?”</p><p>"Twist my arm why don't you?”</p><p>Cooper makes short work of munching through the rest of the fries — apparently he <em>did</em> have an appetite — and afterward excuses himself to the bathroom with the box of tissues to endlessly blow his nose. Eventually he recognizes that no amount of blowing is going to get his nose to quit running and the sensitive skin around his nostrils is becoming painfully chafed and inflamed from today’s various abuses and gives up, sniffling in dissatisfaction.</p><p>When he re-emerges it’s with a tissue balled into his fist, rubbing at the tip of his nose, carrying the box as well as the small trash bin from the bathroom, as he’s just a tissue depleting machine at this point and frankly it’s time to accept it.</p><p>He gets back into bed and tries to chug enough water to hopefully make up for all the fluid he just lost. Audrey watches as a contemplative frown comes over him.</p><p>"Are you sleepy?”</p><p>Cooper pulls more tissues from the box, shaking his head. "Different dwarf," he mumbles.</p><p>“…What?”</p><p>He breathes an audible inhale, eyes shutting tightly, face contorting into a tortured grimace just as it disappears into tightly gripped tissues.</p><p>“<em><b>AESHHH</b></em>ue! —hiih'<em>YERSHoo!"</em> These result in a pain in his ribs so astonishingly sharp that he might actually cry out if he had the breath to, but since he doesn't there’s a yelp incorporated into the last sneeze of the trio.</p><p>"Hiyy-<em><b>YEI</b>HHOO</em>!!" he remains doubled-over for a moment, trying to stay completely still to give his ribs a break while he mentally discharges the pain real quick.</p><p>“<em>Goodness</em>, bless you. Ahh different dwarf; you meant Sneezy.”</p><p>Cooper recovers, smiles about her getting his very dumb joke and snaps his fingers for emphasis, "That's the one—" but he chokes on the end of the sentence and seizes into a series of deep, productive coughs that are beginning to not sound so good.</p><p>Audrey tsks and hands him the water glass, he thanks her and sips the rest of it cautiously.</p><p>When he finally leans back against the pillows, scrubbing under his nostrils with a tissue and looking more than a little worse for wear, she brushes her hand down his arm and squeezes it to give him a serious look.</p><p>"Agent Cooper I think this might be the flu.”</p><p>"I know,” he sighs.</p><p>He looks up at her with glassy eyes, sniffly and looking so drained and achingly boyish she wants nothing more in the entire world than to just hug him right now, to curl close to him and gather his head into her lap and stroke that gorgeous hair and gently kiss his flushed cheek. But she can’t, and she doesn’t.</p><p>"Are you tired? I can get out of your hair if you want me to.”</p><p>This would be a very easy place to let her go — she posed the question herself so it wouldn't be rude, it wouldn't hurt her feelings, all he'd have to do is agree that he's tired.</p><p>But instead, against the last of his better judgement he's fit enough to hold onto, and because he doesn’t actually want her to go at all, he says, "You don't have to go.”</p><p>Audrey tries to keep the smile from her face, "Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?”</p><p>“I do, but I have another rule.”</p><p>“Okay, sure, what is it?”</p><p>“Let me preface this by saying that fevered sleep is a veeery deep sleep. I won’t wake up when you leave and you don’t have to worry about waking me up by accident because you won’t wake me unless you put some effort into it.”</p><p>“But when I do fall asleep, I’m going to embark on a fever-induced vision quest. Now, due to the violent nature of the crime I am investigating, there are inevitably going to be parts which are not very pleasant. If you're still here when I’m sleeping, I may seem distressed, I may toss about, I may even whimper, but I need you not to try to wake me. This might sound strange to you, but my dreams are a very important component of my investigative work.”</p><p>“That doesn’t sound strange to me.” </p><p>And though her heart leapt a little at the thought of the poor sweet Special Agent <em>whimpering</em> in his sleep, Audrey says, “Okay. I won’t wake you.” </p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>She ventures to suggest the most wholesome thing she can come up with, because he really seems to enjoy anything that can be described as such, and she’s not wrong. “Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story?”</p><p>A look of pure delight, he breaks into a grin. "Audrey, I would love a bedtime story.”</p><p>She breathes a giggle. "I'll try to think one up.”</p><p>"You do that, I'm going to brush my teeth and then I'll be ready.”</p><p>"Okay, good plan.”</p><p>Cooper examines the intense saturation of color in his dark circles and very red cheeks and nose in the mirror over the sink as he goes through a truncated version of his get-ready-for-bed checklist. Is there any hope he’ll wake up tomorrow reasonably well enough to go to work and convince a committee of his fitness for duty? Maybe.</p><p>Audrey fiddles in his absence, unsure of what story she’s going to tell him exactly. There is one she knows by heart.</p><p>Cooper gets into bed, settles in under the covers and smiles. “Okay, I’m ready.”</p><p>Audrey thinks for a moment, decides to commit. “Once upon a time there was a young spy, her name was... Autumn. Autumn, uh, Meadows."</p><p>She tries to repress nervous laughter, feels a little unsure and silly until he mumbles, “I like it already,” in encouragement and it works.</p><p>“Autumn was a very lucky child. Her father — his name was.. Jonathan Meadows — he was very wealthy because he owned a lot of the businesses in their town. Autumn got to have a lot of things that other kids didn’t, so it was okay that her father didn’t come to her dance recitals like the other dads. The reason he was so busy was so that he could give her everything she ever wanted — or almost everything, which was close enough.”</p><p>“One of the businesses her father owned was a hotel, and that’s where they lived. It was a very beautiful place, and it was very very big, especially when she was small. People were always coming and going. Other kids her age, or adults she found interesting would visit the hotel sometimes, but they would leave, and she would stay. She spent a lot of her time exploring and running around the hotel.”</p><p>“Autumn was what some people might refer to as a snoop, but she considered herself closer to a detective, like Nancy Drew. Like many fateful events, it started by accident. One day in a hallway of the the hotel, Autumn sees a repairman open a hidden door in the wall that she didn’t know about, apparently to fix a water heater. From what Autumn’s heard about secret doors, she knows they usually lead to amazing things, like secret gardens or lions and witches. So when the repairman leaves and nobody’s looking, she goes to check it out.”</p><p>“Inside she finds not just a water heater but a whole secret room, more than big enough for her to stand in. She also notices that she can hear what sounds like her father’s voice, but it’s muffled — she realizes that the secret room shares a wall with her father’s office. Now this was right around Autumn’s eighth birthday and she thinks that maybe, if she can hear him properly, her father might mention what he’s getting her. She was one of those kids who liked to carefully shake every box under the Christmas tree to try to guess what was inside. She didn’t care about ruining the surprise because solving the mystery was even better.”</p><p>“Autumn had seen people in movies eavesdrop by holding a glass against the wall. She tries that, but it doesn’t really work. It helps her hear a little better, but not clear enough to be able to pick out any individual words, ideally, for example, “dollhouse.” So instead, that night when everyone’s asleep, Autumn goes to search her father’s office, looking everywhere for—“</p><p>Audrey’s narration is broken when Cooper sharply raises one hand in a "halt" gesture, panting as he twists away into his tented arm to strangle sneezes into submission through gritted teeth.</p><p>“<em>HerrEISHuu, ERSHHoo!!”</em> There’s not even time enough to breathe between the first two but a brief, wavering pause before the third sneeze, which does little to relieve the insatiable irritation in his sinuses but does quite a lot in terms of scraping the hell out of his throat.</p><p>“Hhd’<em><b>ERRSHH</b>oo</em>!” He is reminded once again—or thrice again—of the very pronounced effect sneezing has on healing broken ribs.</p><p>“God <em>bless</em> you.”</p><p>Congestion sticks to his consonants. “Uhgh, I’m so sorry to interrupt, Audrey.”</p><p>“You don’t need to apologize to me for sneezing, silly.”</p><p>“I need just one more moment — pardon me in advance for this.”</p><p>He snatches a few tissues and sits up to blow his nose, productively but as subtly as he can manage due to her proximity and the vain appeal of holding on to the vestigial remains of his dwindling pride. He tosses the tissues in the trashcan and tugs the blankets back up to his chin, shifting to regain optimum comfiness.</p><p><em>"Snf!</em> Okay, <em>snff</em>, done. Please continue, I’m really enjoying it so far.”</p><p>“Right, where was I?”</p><p>“Autumn in her father’s office.”</p><p>“Okay, right. So Autumn searches her father’s office, but she can’t find any presents anywhere. However, while she’s in there, she looks at the wall connected to the secret room, and notices a small knot hole in the wood. She peeks inside, but there’s another wood panel behind it.”</p><p>"She isn’t sure how thick the wall is on the other side, but she thinks that maybe she could somehow drill or punch through the second panel to create a peephole she could access from the secret room. So Autumn finds a screwdriver.”</p><p>Cooper’s eyes are closed but he grins at the mental picture of it. Their childhoods aren’t dissimilar.</p><p>“She pokes it into the knot hole and jabs it into the second panel as hard as she can. To her surprise, there’s a thud and the whole metal shaft of the screwdriver disappears into the hole. When she peers inside, she can see the corner of the water heater.”</p><p>“So Autumn runs back to the secret room to see that, thankfully, she hadn’t knocked down the wall or broken anything she could get in trouble for. She had just loosened a wooden panel that could easily be put back, and just as easily removed again. She had created a secret spy room where she could look in on her father’s office any time she wanted.”</p><p>“The next day, while she’s supposed to be doing her math homework, Autumn holes up in her secret spy room to stake out her father’s office. For the first couple of hours he just makes boring business calls, but Autumn has nothing better to do — aside from her math homework — and since her birthday was the very next day, it seems highly likely that her father would mention her birthday present at some point.”</p><p>“Then, someone else enters her father’s office — a red haired woman. Autumn recognizes her because she’d sometimes see her at parties her father threw. When her father speaks to this woman now, his voice sounds… different. Low and strange and growly. Tufts of fur suddenly sprout from his skin, his human face elongates into a snout, as before her very eyes, Autumn’s father turns from man into wolf.”</p><p>“The beast howls and starts to kiss the red haired woman, but not like the way he kissed Autumn’s mother, and not the way she’d ever seen any adults kiss, not even in movies. It wasn’t sweet or happy or smiley but… animal and hurried and scary. Before Autumn even really understands what’s happening, her father pushes the woman up against the desk, pressing against her. When he starts to take off his pants, Autumn stops watching, and puts the wood panel back. But she can still hear sounds that make her wish the walls were much, much harder to hear through.”</p><p>Cooper opens his eyes to catch hers and convey that he’s listening.</p><p>“The next day she unwraps a beautiful dollhouse, but she can hardly look at her father and can’t bring herself to thank him. Her parents scold her for being ungrateful and send her to her room, which as far as they knew was fair enough. But Autumn had seen her father’s wolf form, and she knew she’d never see him the same way again. She doesn’t tell anyone about it. And she doesn’t go back to the secret room for a long time; a year maybe.”</p><p>“But Autumn has a weakness for secrets that eventually wins out when she’s curious enough about what her father and her uncle are talking about to go back to the secret room and be a spy again. She starts going there regularly, less to observe her father, and more to study other people he brought into his office — though if the red haired woman came, Autumn always left. John Meadows was a busy man, and many people visited his office. It didn’t take Autumn very long to start to understand the way her father really made his money. Which usually involved finding ways around laws or rules, or tricking people out of money somehow.”</p><p>“She becomes familiar enough with wolfish behavior to be able to identify other wolves, even when they don’t change in front of her. She starts to recognize some of her father’s friends and colleagues as fellow wolves. They’d speak to him in public in whispers and she’d see their long teeth glimmer in the light, just for a moment.”</p><p>"At first, it was kind of interesting and scandalous to overhear the plots and schemes and to figure out what it was they all planned to do exactly, but it occurred so regularly that at a certain point it became kinda boring. Business as usual. But sometimes she had fun by trying to ruin some of her father’s plans if they were able to be easily ruined by Autumn knowing how to be in in the wrong place at the wrong time, saying exactly the wrong thing to someone very important.”</p><p>“While of course not every man is a full blown wolf, many men, in Autumn’s experience, would act like one, at least on occasion. When she gets to high school, many of the boys she grew up with, once such innocent puppies, grow into wolfish traits. She sees it in snarled private jokes, and the hungry way they look at other woman, the way they look at her.”</p><p>“Autumn is not prey, but she’s familiar enough with wolves to know what they want and she can use it to her advantage without ever letting any of them actually get anything in return — she never lets them taste her. She becomes something of a wolf charmer, and finds she can use her skills in a variety of ways to get things that she wants. And, unfortunately, she learns other things from the wolves, from her father. She learns that it gets even easier to get what you want when you don’t follow the rules.”</p><p>“Then one day, a very handsome Special Agent comes to Autumn’s town to catch wolves, and he stays at her father’s hotel. Autumn likes him immediately, not just because he’s handsome, which did I mention he’s veeery, very handsome, but because he can see the wolves too. Autumn knows that being a wolf was technically illegal, but it had become so familiar to her that she’d almost forgotten it was anything but normal. Usually the wolves don’t seem to fear breaking laws, but when the Special Agent comes, they are all afraid of him.”</p><p>“The Special Agent is a man of the law, but to him the law is something powerful and meaningful, something to be respected. Not exploited the way she sees her father’s lawyer and brother do. Autumn realizes that using the wolves’ nature against them for her own purposes didn’t give her power over them. I mean it sort of did, but not the kind of power she wanted, not anymore.”</p><p>“So while the Special Agent is there, Autumn tries to help him with his case. But she falls back on her old tricks. Things go horribly wrong when Autumn goes undercover into the wolves’ den and she gets attacked. The Special Agent rescues her. He dresses her wounds and saves her life. And the experience makes her understand she needs to find new ways to deal with wolves.”</p><p>"She learns from the Special Agent, from the way he investigates and also from the way he treats others. One day, the Special Agent finishes the case he was working on in her town. He caught all the wolves he was looking for, so now he has to leave. And when he does it breaks her heart a little bit. More than a little bit. She’s inspired by him to become a detective too, maybe not with a gun or a badge, maybe just in the way she goes about exposing the wolves she sees. And in the ways she tries to be a better person.”</p><p>“Autumn knows there are wolves more dangerous than her father, but even though he may not bite, he still hurts people. He hurts Autumn most of all, because he doesn’t see her and maybe doesn’t even care. So maybe the next time her father hurts or tricks someone, she catches him and she helps put him in a cage where he can’t hurt anyone else.”</p><p>“And maybe Autumn catches other wolves when she sees them too. Maybe eventually the small town where she lives becomes totally wolf-free, and no one has to be afraid. Except for the wolves obviously, because Autumn Meadows is coming for them, and she means business.”</p><p>Audrey is almost positive that Cooper has fallen asleep when she realizes the ambient noise of the room has ceased to include his steady sniffling.</p><p>She is in fact correct, this is the point when Cooper falls asleep. Prior to that he processes her story, impressed by her self expression and openness. There are not many who have to witness such things at eight years old and manage to come to terms with them—to confront how they’ve been influenced by them— by eighteen.</p><p>At first he feels a duty to stay awake so he can say something when she’s done, because it’s a sad story, and a powerful one. But once it turns an empowering corner and starts to conclude, he feels that it’d be okay to offer a response later, and that it wouldn’t be impolite to fall asleep. Her soft voice and presence in the room is calming and he’s comfortable enough to release his grip on consciousness. When he does fall asleep, his thoughts are of tenacious young Audrey, and how ultimately she’ll be okay.</p><p>Audrey ends her story with a final paragraph that’s mostly for herself.</p><p>“And maybe, probably, the Special Agent was right when he said that one day Autumn would find someone she could have, and who she wanted to have, maybe even as much as she wanted him, as impossible as that honestly seemed. But the Special Agent would always have a very special place in her heart, and she would never forget him, not ever.”</p><p>Audrey carefully gets up from the bed and takes shelter in Cooper’s bathroom to privately shed a couple tears, but she doesn’t allow herself to completely fall apart. He’s not gone yet, and she reminds herself of this as she wipes her eyes in the mirror. She takes a minute to recover while she looks through his toiletries, smelling his shampoo and deodorant which somehow makes her feel better.</p><p>When she steps back out Cooper is softly snoring. She picks up the decorative wooden doll he’d knocked off the nightstand that they’d both forgotten about and returns it to its proper place.</p><p>She looks down at the slumbering agent and wonders how anyone could be so sick and still so beautiful. His skin is flushed scarlet and glistening with perspiration, and it’s also obvious he can’t fully breathe through his nose, but he looks peaceful, for now at least. She tests his fever with the back of her fingers, and is pretty sure he feels hotter than the last time she was able to touch his face.</p><p>And then, because he’s definitely very much asleep, and also because she’s sort of shameless and will most likely never have another opportunity to do this, Audrey leans down and presses her lips to his hot forehead in a very gentle, cautious secret kiss.</p><p>She switches off the lamp on the nightstand, turns to leave, whispers, “Sweet dreams, Special Agent Cooper,” and closes the door behind her.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. One Chance Out Between Two Worlds FIRE WALK WITH ME</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aka <b>Vaguely Lynch-Flavored Fever Dreams</b><br/>aka <b>My ‘I’m-New-2-Prose-But-I-Worked-Very-Hard-On-It’ Moment</b></p><p>Here's five goddamn thousand words worth of Cooper's titular fever dreams, I hope they are at least somewhat Lynchian. Not a ton of sneezing for the word count (so bad news for if you're here for the snz and if you're not I imagine you will consider this chapter a reprieve haha), and only the H half of h/c, but I tried to make the instances especially descriptive to balance it out (for those into that). I tried here to expand on some stuff with Josie, and allude to her eventual perplexing wood-trapped fate. Big part of this is inspired by the <i>Fire Walk With Me</i> poem that appears throughout the show.</p><p>Be warned there's a hint of violence in this chapter incl blood if that freaks anyone out.</p><p>If you don't know the series or haven't watched it in a while and need a refresher<br/>Josie Packard = Andrew Packard's widow (Andrew was the owner of the Packard sawmill, presumed dead, but...) and is also Sheriff Harry Truman's current lover.<br/>Catherine Martell = Andrew Packard's sister, person Cooper interviewed earlier in this fic.<br/>Laura Palmer = dead girl, reason the show exists.<br/>Benjamin Horne = Audrey's father, not great person, orchestrating some shady stuff when it comes to our Special Agent.<br/>BOB = "the evil that exists in men," not sure how else to describe him/it if you haven't watched the show which you should bc it's wonderful strange semi-campy nineties innocence and horrifically disturbing murder mystery and Kyle MacLachlan and many obscenely gorgeous women and there is truly nothing like it.<br/>The rest of the characters I've given a brief description in this text, not super important to the story anyway shut up here you go</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of course, Cooper’s dreams are anything but sweet.</p><p>This one kicks off with a memory of interviewing Josie Packard—Andrew’s widow, Harry’s lover. She’s etherial as always, wearing a carefully tied black silk robe, affecting an attitude that struck him as subtly disingenuous, and repeating a line from a strange final conversation with Laura Palmer:</p><p>“I think now I understand how you feel about your husband’s death.”</p><p>It’s a loose end that both his conscious and unconscious mind have been tugging from the seams recently.</p><p>“I can’t help replaying it in my head, like some haunting melody,” Josie says.</p><p>I think now I understand how you feel about your husband’s death.</p><p>The context changes but the refrain lingers. The Bang Bang Bar, red curtains partition a stage humming with a cast of blue neon. Laura Palmer herself now singing the words as a literal melody, accompanied by the slurry notes of a saxophone, the patiently measured plucking of bass strings — smooth jazz in no particular hurry.</p><p>“I think now,” Laura, demure in a black velvet suit dress behind a microphone. Her hands caress the silver mic, sensual, cradling and lifting it to her mouth like someone about to taste a fine wine from a fragile glass. “I understand how you feel…”</p><p>Over her shoulders, background singers, as if they were there already — Josie Packard and Catherine Martell — chorusing a harmony that echos the words, “How you feel,”</p><p><br/>All together now, in a three part harmony, unseen saxophone ratcheting up in the background. Laura’s, Josie’s, and Catherine’s faces three blue-lit moons, “About your husband’s—”</p><p>Vocals disappear, crossfading into an indulgent solo of percussion.</p><p>Cooper startles awake to the sound of knocking. Had Audrey forgotten something? Three more knocks: loud, demanding, definitely not Audrey. Hair raises on the back of his neck with the sudden gut-knowledge of danger. He sits up slowly, reaches under his mattress for his gun, steps onto the floor, slinking toward the door in near-silence. Hand on the handle, turning mere millimeters at a time.</p><p>In the span of two seconds he cocks his weapon, swings open the door to a masked face and pointed gun and he fires twice at the gunman. There’s a muzzle flash as the gunman fires back thrice — a shot whizzes past Cooper and hits the nightstand.</p><p>The gunman falls backward like a crumbling wall, splayed across the hallway’s pinewood floor like a rag doll, two entry wounds to the chest. Still cautious, gun still pointed as per both FBI procedures and common sense, Cooper quickly swipes the opposing weapon from a limp hand.</p><p><em>Who?</em> He leans over the anonymous body and peels a black mask backwards from neck to forehead to reveal a craggy, handsome face… “James …Bond?” It is indeed. Cooper marvels at the body of the fictional character, lying haphazard in the hallway of the Great Northern Hotel.</p><p>Three crimson droplets rain down onto Bond’s furrowed forehead. Cooper brings a hand to his nose, checks his fingers; sure enough streaked with blood, which, come to think of it, he can feel trickling down his upper lip. He looks down to see what further havoc it’s wreaked and realizes belatedly that there’s a much more serious wound — blood pooling in his shirt from his abdomen. He clutches hopelessly at the area. God, <em>please</em> not again.</p><p>He falls backwards to the ground, head tilted towards the nightstand — clean bullet hole dead center through the drawer’s knob, its entry point leaving scorched wood and a delicate wisp of dancing smoke. The last thing he sees before his vision fades out.</p><p>Cooper wakes with alarm and a confused snort of an inhale, scans the room wildly, pulse racing from the shock of it. He yanks the blankets away from his waist and looks down at his abdomen, no blood. He touches his face, which actually is wet, but inspecting his fingers results in the realization that it’s not blood, his nose is just running. Okay, actually awake now. Probably.</p><p>Stupid dream. Useless stupid dream. He utters an indistinct noise, congested and involuntary, and grabs a hasty bundle of tissues to mop himself up. Guh. He feels distinctly soupy. He’s gonna need to blow his nose for ages. Reeling from the weirdness and general malaise, he peels the blankets the rest of the way off, the thinner sheets sweat-stuck to his legs. In fact, the whole bed is a tangled mess of soaked cotton and he realizes that he’s very cold and wet. Likely doing worse in the fever department, but that was how it always went.</p><p>The only other pajamas he has are the ones he sweat through yesterday, which are gross but technically physically dry and his only reasonable warm option. The sheets are a loss but the duvet didn’t suffer too much and the opposite side is dry. He fumbles to strip the top sheet off but doesn’t bother with the fitted sheet — he’ll just put a towel down.</p><p>The tissue box is ferried to the bathroom with him, becoming a routine. Well, it was, at least, but about fifteen seconds into trying to clear his nose he paws into the tissue box and feels only the bottom of an empty cardboard container. Toilet paper will do, though the skin around and under his nostrils is painfully tender enough not to enjoy the slight roughness of the checkered double ply. The vibration from forcing air through his sinuses brings another unpleasant sensation promptly back to life, starting specifically toward the back of the left nostril — a location so precise he could pinpoint it if he had a diagram of the sinuses, though why would he?</p><p>Hitching in ragged, punctuated inhales, Cooper unrolls a wad of toilet paper and brings it to his face, with a quick raise of his chin, cresting into a sharp “<em>Hih</em>!” and toppling forward like a domino—</p><p>“<em><b>HrrRESSHH</b>hoo!!”</em> He remains mostly bent at the waist, shoulders swelling slightly upward on an inhale until he shivers into the makeshift tissues again with a desperate “<em>Ehyy<b>YIISSHH-uhh</b></em>—“ that’s still only two-thirds satisfactory.</p><p>His voice rises an entire octave: “<em>Heh?<b>YEIHH</b>hoo!!</em>”</p><p>The drama of this particular fit is not lost on him — he hazily catches his own blurry post-sneeze expression in the mirror and says “Oy.” He really would like to stop sneezing.</p><p>He doesn’t fully remember putting it there but the tape recorder is in the breast pocket of his plaid pajama shirt.</p><p>With a final liquid sniffle, he raises the tape recorder and clicks record. “Diane,” he croaks, then clears his throat in a single determined syllable. “It’s… I forgot to check the time, some very dark sleepy hour in the middle of the night. I just had a dream involving a flashback to being shot. I thought I was getting somewhere but it turns out my hippocampus was just riffing off the fact that Albert said I was shot with the same gun James Bond uses, a Walther PPK.”</p><p>He rubs at his eyes with the heel of the palm of his free hand. “Which is nonsense for two main reasons. A. James Bond does not actually exist, and B. According to Albert’s analysis of the entry point of my wound, I was shot by an individual between the height of five foot seven and five foot ten inches. Diane, I was hoping that my fever would heighten my dreams into a greater level of prophecy, but I’m starting to think it might just make them weirder.”</p><p>“I was optimistic about there being an upside to this illness but maybe that was silly. It’s all catching up to me now and I feel… utterly and entirely awful.” It’s a small relief to say this out loud but sometimes he forgets he’s talking to someone who has to listen to these later and not just vocalizing his thoughts to himself.</p><p>“Sorry, ignore me Diane, I’m whining again.” He stops the tape, grabs a towel to lay over the wet sheet and drapes it over his shoulder. He’s only going to blow his nose ooone more time.</p><p>He scrubs irritation from his eyes and nose with a fresh chain of toilet paper squares. Clearing his sinuses this final time is more productive than he expected, and his nose starts to run again, but extremely fast and cold, <em>oh wait no</em>.</p><p>Bright red blood on the paper. Hmm… He checks the mirror and it’s only from the left nostril. It’s a quick bleed that’s over just as quickly as it came on. Probably not a prophetic aspect to the dream — it was bound to happen what with his recent mistreatment of his nose. His subconscious was obviously just channeling the physical sensation of a runny nose and translating it to whatever seemed most relevant in the context of the dream. So the nosebleed is almost certainly coincidental. Probably.</p><p>Either way, it’s definitely bedtime. While he’s not comfortable, per se, huddled atop a bath towel in a sheetless bed that still feels vaguely damp, his mouth perma-parted slightly open so he can breathe, he does begin to doze off.</p><p>During the liminal phase of almost-sleep, the Giant appears to him again, shrouded in a bright light. Cooper opens his eyes and concentrates into strict attention. He’s still not sure who or what the Giant is exactly, but his cryptic words always have a way of revealing crucial clues in the waking world.</p><p>The Giant towers above him, head almost touching the ceiling, speaking slowly, significantly. “Sometimes, she misses.” The meaning, as always, is not immediately apparent, but Cooper nods in acknowledgment. He will remember this.</p><p>After the image fades away, Cooper is cognizant enough to blindly reach to the nightstand for the tape recorder. He thumbs the switch on the lamp and jostles an object. Scrambling to catch it—the damn wooden doll again—but it topples from the tabletop, and he sits up and looks over the side of the bed to see where it’ll land.</p><p>As the wooden doll twirls through the air, almost in slow motion, it unfurls and transforms, somehow, into Josie Packard. She hits the floor with a terrible cracking sound and crumbles into fractured little pieces, a broken porcelain doll…</p><p>Cooper jolts awake again into a fit of coughing. Is he truly awake this time? Was he truly awake a couple wakings ago? If he rewinds backward on the tape to the message he left for Diane about the James Bond gun, he’ll know for certain it’s real. He starts to reach for the tape recorder, stops short, carefully grabs the wooden doll first and sets it safely on the bed, then the recorder.</p><p>The tape scratches in high pitched garbles as it’s rewinded. He hits play at a point some time in the middle of his last recording. “—my hippocampus was just riffing off the fact that Albert said I was shot with the same gun James Bond uses, a Walther PPK.”</p><p>Okay, good, he had recorded it. So he’d been awake. Something else comes to mind. Cooper clears his throat with some difficulty and presses record again.</p><p>“Diane, it’s… two twenty-five A.M. I had another thought related to the gun. Albert said I was shot with a Walther PPK. I had assumed what he’d actually meant was a Walther PPK/S, considering that’s the version of the gun used by the James Bond character that is available in the United States. Walther is a German company. Due to the Gun Control Act of 1968 there were new size specifications on the commercial importation of foreign handguns — afterwards the PPK could no longer be imported to the U.S. Its weight was a mere few ounces too light. Thus, the PPK/S was manufactured. Extremely similar with just a few modifications in order to be complaint with American regulations.”</p><p>“Considering one cannot legally procure a Walther PPK in this country, if Albert meant what he said, that gun would probably have been brought in from overseas as someone’s personal possession. I must call Albert in the morning.”</p><p>Three knocks at the door. Not as aggressive as before, but at 2:26 in the morning, it’s still odd enough that he grabs his gun and approaches the door with caution.</p><p>Five more knocks arranged in a musical fashion and an elderly voice, raspy but cheery. “Room service.”</p><p>Cooper opens the door, squinting at the contrasting yellowed brightness of the hallway. The lanky white haired waiter—whose name, he realizes with some guilt, he still doesn’t know—stands before him holding a glass of milk on a tray.</p><p>“Sorry, I didn’t order room service. I think you must have the wrong room.”</p><p>“Uh-oh! Pardon me then.” The image of the waiter disappears in an instant. Blinking and disconcerted and perhaps not awake after all, Cooper leans further out and looks down the hallway.</p><p>A few doors down the hall to the right, a young girl of maybe 7 or 8 stares back at him with a shy smile. Short brown hair, blue eyes, round little face, and a mole near her left eye that Cooper would recognize anywhere.</p><p>“…Audrey?”</p><p>A little giggle pierces the quiet as she takes off in the opposite direction, looking back over her shoulder and motioning for him to follow her. Dutifully, Cooper trails behind. <em>Where are we going?</em></p><p>She turns the corner, he lengthens his strides to catch up. A small door in the wall swings open, Young Audrey stands in its doorway, beckoning him.</p><p>“What’s—”</p><p>She shushes him and whispers, “Come on, hurry up!”</p><p>He ducks to clear the low overhang of the undersized door and finds them inside a room that looks to be an abandoned tool closet, also littered with evidence of Young Audrey’s occasional occupation — a couple faded pillows on the floor next to a stack of yellow hardcover books and a random smattering of stickers on the unfinished wood of the walls.</p><p>Young Audrey wedges her little fingers into vertical cracks and removes a wooden panel. A sizable knot hole in the wall behind it. She gestures for him to come stand beside her, they both peer in through the hole.</p><p>Benjamin Horne’s office is filled with known faces. Benjamin, his lawyer brother Jerry Horne, recent convict Hank Jennings, Jean Renault of One Eyed Jack’s. Shirts messy and untucked, straddling or leaning on chairs in ways not strictly intended, postures suggesting a party stretched too long. Chuckling but not speaking. Someone else enters the office — Cooper is alarmed to see a walking image of himself dressed in a tuxedo.</p><p>“Ahh Agent Cooper, finally!” Benjamin announces the doppelgänger’s entry as if speaking to an old drinking buddy.</p><p>Other Cooper joins the degenerate table. Jean Renault slides a tray over to him. Other Cooper takes a dollar bill rolled into a neat tube, bends over the tray, brings the created straw to one nostril and snorts a substance — by deduction, cocaine.</p><p>“I think they’re setting you up,” Young Audrey whispers to actual Cooper.</p><p>Other Cooper sniffles in the aftermath of powder inhalation and a small line of blood dribbles down his nose, which prompts a roar of laughter around the table that Other Cooper himself choruses into.</p><p>“Oh no, your nose is bleeding,” Young Audrey says quietly. Reflexively, Cooper touches his own nose to discover it, too, is bleeding. He tries to quell the flow with his hand, red runs through the cracks between his fingers.</p><p>“Are you okay?” she asks.</p><p>“I’m… not sure.”</p><p>But he’s suddenly in another scene.</p><p>The Red Room — a large, mostly empty room walled on all four sides by enormous floor length red velvet curtains, height and means of anchor unclear. Black and white chevron flooring faded to sepia tones. Very few objects: Three velvet armchairs arranged in an L shape; two very tall silver fluted lamps; one marble statue—the <em>Venus de Medici</em>; one end table with a lighted miniature model of Saturn.</p><p>This transcendental waiting room has become a common feature of his dreams as of late. Things that occur here are contained, strange but mostly non-threatening. Still there is an element of irrepressible anxiety to it, like a looming root canal. Everything just slightly off, and begging to be made sense of. Cooper in a suit, sitting in his usual chair.</p><p>Laura Palmer in the chair farthest from him. Black slitted dress, impeccable posture. The dwarf in the red suit gets up from the chair next to Cooper and dances off in crooked steps, snapping along to ambient jazz that seems to fade in and out, only audible if concentrated on.</p><p>Now, in the seat vacated by the dwarf, James Bond. The presence of the fictional character is an incorrect piece in this puzzle. The one of the things that does not belong.</p><p>“You’re not supposed to be here.”</p><p>Bond stares into him and says, “I killed my husband.”</p><p>Cooper, exasperated. “No you didn’t.”</p><p>James Bond grins, says in an oddly delicate voice, “You’re right. I tried to kill him. But he lived.”</p><p>Cooper is rather thrown by this statement and pauses a moment, processing. Things begin to click. “Mr. Bond; How did you try to kill your husband?”</p><p>Bond stands from the chair and approaches Cooper, reaching a white gloved hand to his face and cradling his chin.</p><p>Cooper is compelled to open his mouth, which feels strangely like it’s full of cotton. Bond sticks his fingers into Cooper’s mouth and tugs out a long strand of red fabric like a sleight of hand magician. Once removed, in a single motion, showman-like, Bond shakes the fabric back into a square — Harry’s red handkerchief.</p><p>Bond drapes the handkerchief over a shoulder. He reaches his hands into both pockets of his blazer and flips them inside out to display their emptiness. Hands back in his pockets, pulling out two items — first a glass bottle, then a full cup of coffee. Like an expert bartender, he raises the coffee mug very high and pours it into the glass bottle without spilling a drop. As it pours, the liquid changes consistency — now thicker, sludgy, smelling not of coffee but of scorched engine oil.</p><p>Bond throws the empty mug over his shoulder, eyebrows rising and mouth forming an O in a “whoops!” pantomime. The mug shatters on the floor, but when Cooper’s eyes dart to the site of the crash, there’s no evidence of shattered ceramic, as if it never happened.</p><p>Bond folds the red handkerchief accordion-style, rapidly submerges it into the liquid in the jar and pulls one end of the fabric back out, arranging the trailing edge into a neat fan. This isn’t a magic trick…</p><p>“Do you want to play with fire, little boy?”</p><p>Oh no, no no no—</p><p>Cooper knows what’s coming but he can't seem to move from the chair. Bond goes to Laura, the next lovely assistant, and reaches behind her ear — a performative snap as he reveals a lit matchstick.</p><p>“Do you want to play with BOB?”</p><p>James Bond cackles then, suddenly BOB— dirty long hair streaked with gray, menacing face, eyes and mouth much too large. Eye contact unbroken as he brings the match to the soaked cloth, lighting the improvised incendiary device — in colloquial terms, a Molotov cocktail.</p><p>Cooper’s eyes widen in horror and the visible fear sends BOB’s laughter howling up another notch. “You asked, Coop!”</p><p>In a single, joyously taken motion, BOB pivots around and launches the glass bottle across the room into the curtained wall, as it shatters instantly blossoming into a pyrotechnic supernova. Cooper, finally mobile, instinctively dives to the ground during the explosion and looks up to find all the room’s inhabitants, real or imaginary, gone.</p><p>A sea of flames make a serpentine creep up the red velvet, a fluted lamp topples, a corner of an armchair ignites. The Red Room is burning. Do the curtains open — can he leave? He stands and desperately feels around with his hands on the wall of drapery opposite the hungrily expanding blaze until he finds an opening.</p><p>Is there a building beyond these curtained walls? Cooper parts the heavy velvet to arrive in a short hallway, same red curtains, same chevron flooring, different marble statue. He rushes to the end of the hall, examining the opposite wall until he finds the slitted opening. The next room is the same shape and size of the familiar waiting room, but the furniture isn’t here. As Cooper surveys this new room he realizes that the very act of his entry through the draped doorway has lit these curtains aflame too.</p><p>Another opening then, is there one on any of the walls that aren’t burning? Yes, okay, through here — an identical disorienting hallway, this one quickly filling with smoke. A great widening hole devouring and blackening a curtain exposes the first waiting room, or at least a waiting room with identical furniture that suffered an identical incident. There’s an incredible heat building and radiating from the flaming curtains — does that mean he can feel pain here?</p><p>Experimentally he reaches toward the blaze and yes, yes he can indeed feel pain in this strange psychic space, but mostly it’s the wafting smoke that’s starting to get to him. His eyes are stinging and he can feel the irritation in his lungs and airways. Coughing doesn’t seem to help, in fact it seems to make it worse when he inhales between the spasming in his chest, but he can’t stop.</p><p>This hall only leads back to this room and its twin room, both of which are loudly burning down around him, fire devouring the furniture, curtains twitching and tattering into fragile webs. The only object untouched is the marble statue — Venus immobile and unmoved by the destruction, as helpless to stop it as he is. Smoke swallows the room, clouding his vision.</p><p>A ceaseless, barking cough that keels him over. Hands on his knees as he watches the undulating zig zags crawl across the floor in an optical illusion from the heat waves. Ember coated debris and tendrils of flame rain down, and Cooper realizes he’s never actually thought to look at the ceiling of this place, but it’s inscrutable now. This no longer resembles a room at all, just a collapsing, fiery purgatory of a building too thick with smoke to decipher an exit.</p><p>He barely registers a tiny hand on his arm — it’s Catherine, but as a child from the photo he’d seen at her house, just a small red haired girl.</p><p>“I know the way out, come with me!” she shouts, tugging at his sleeve. He follows her, trying very very hard not to fall down but becoming unbelievably dizzy and needing to bend over. Little Catherine at his side again, tugging him much more forcibly than someone that small should be able to but then again the laws of physics always seemed to have at best a tenuous relationship with this place.</p><p>She releases her grip — the woods. The heat is gone, as are the sounds of the roaring flames and falling debris — where was the building, the fire? All traces of it are gone, save for the horrible burning in his lungs and the agonizing, useless coughing.</p><p>“Who tried to kill you?” Catherine asks.</p><p>He takes as much of a breath as he can and manages to sputter, “James Bond.”</p><p>“Yeah, she tried to kill my brother too. But she missed.”</p><p>He squints up at small Catherine, who gestures at a blonde adolescent boy just ahead of them in the trees.</p><p> </p><p>Cooper jolts upright in bed into a vicious coughing fit. There’s a tightness in his lungs that the coughing is not touching, not relieving at all. Chest pain, mild panic. Oxygen seems to be eluding him. He feels like he’s trying to breathe through a squished straw, inhaling produces a sound similar to a squeaky toy. Somehow it’s not until he hears that sound that he realizes what’s happening.</p><p>Cooper hasn’t had an asthma attack since he was a child. But he didn’t spend 8 years as a Boy Scout to come out the other side unprepared — he does have a rescue inhaler. He goes to the closet, wheezing and wiping his considerably leaking nose on his sleeve as he unzips the front pocket on his suitcase and digs for it. It’s still in its cardboard prescription box, which has been in the bottom of the suitcase so long it’s flattened into a shape that no longer resembles a cube, the paper worn soft and tearing away as he fiddles the flaps open and extracts the damn thing.</p><p>He shakes it, exhales all the air he can which doesn’t feel like much, puts his lips over the mouthpiece, and inhales a puff of Albuterol. Repeats the process twice more. His lungs stop screaming quite so loudly. He links his hands over his head, recalling a position that used to help. He’d kept an inhaler with him when he traveled since he was sent on his first assignment after graduating from the academy, always updating the prescription once a year when it expired, despite never needing it, just in case.</p><p>This was a special occasion.</p><p>Cooper is finally able to catch his breath enough to process the dreams while he more properly tends to his nose, which had taken a deserved back seat to sorting out oxygen intake. He knows two things for certain. Josie was the person who shot him last week. And Andrew Packard was still alive despite Josie’s attempt to take his life two years ago. The Giant said sometimes she misses, echoed by young Catherine regarding the attempted murder of her brother. When James Bond, who apparently was a strange stand-in for Josie, shot him, one of the bullets missed and hit the nightstand. Bond also said in the Red Room that he killed his husband, and when asked how, manifested and launched an incendiary device. Andrew’s attempted murder had also been performed by way of explosion and resulting fire.</p><p>It’s almost certainly the mix of these exciting revelations, the probably escalating fever, and the fact that he didn’t die from imagined smoke inhalation <em>or</em> real asthma attack but Cooper feels euphoric and amazing and also definitely about to sneeze.</p><p>A squeaky inhale—the Albuterol had done something weird to his throat—and a headlong dive into an elbow, bolstered by the other arm, “<em><b>ESSZHH</b>yue</em>!” High pitched gasp, “Heiy<em><b>YEZ</b>SHHuu</em>, <em><b>EISSHH!</b>shue</em>.” Oof, goodness gracious.</p><p>Was he doing something? What time is it? 5:30, so 8:30 on the East coast, Albert is at work by now in D.C. Cooper dials the office and Albert’s extension and performs a precursory deep sniffle and three-part throat clear.</p><p>“Detective Albert Rosenfield.”</p><p>“Albert, it’s Cooper.”</p><p>“Why are you calling me so early?”</p><p>“I have to ask you something about—”</p><p>“Jesus Cooper did you swallow a wet frog?”</p><p>“I’m under the weather, Albert.” He sniffles, not <em>un</em>amused.</p><p>“You sound awful, Coop.” He says then, with genuine concern, “Don’t you have that review today?”</p><p>Albert was snippy but ultimately a good guy.</p><p>“Yes. But the reason I called— <em>sih</em>..sorry, holdon—“</p><p>Cooper holds the phone away from himself to muffle the coming sounds as much as possible in the fabric of his shirtsleeve, “Hurr<em>RISH</em>yuu, <em>huhRESHH</em>oo!” He imagines Albert’s deadpan look and quietly hitches toward the end of his interruption, “<em>heh… hiiYISHHoo!</em>”</p><p>A shaky released exhale as he returns the phone to his ear. “Okay, sorry about that. <em>Snhf!</em> I called because—“</p><p>“You called to sneeze at me?"</p><p>“<em>No</em>. You said I was shot by a Walther PPK. Did you mean that, or did you mean the U.S. version, the PPK/S?”</p><p>“I don’t mince words Coop, if I’d meant a PPK/S I would have said that.”</p><p>“Thank you, Albert, that answers my question.”</p><p>“Uh huh. I’ve technically given you no additional information but glad to be of service. Also it’s a miracle I <em>understood</em> your question, I can hardly tell what you’re saying.”</p><p><em>“Snff!</em> I know, sorry. N’s are hard and I’m losing my voice.”</p><p>“Do you think you can even <em>attend</em> this review today, or are you gonna die beforehand?”</p><p>“I’m not entirely sure yet, we’ll see.”</p><p>“If you go you should take the rest of the day off afterward.”</p><p>“Way ahead of you.”</p><p>“Alright well good luck with all that, feel better, bubye.”</p><p>Cooper puts the phone back. While not hard evidence and not something he needs to share with anyone until he does have hard evidence, hearing that the Walther was of foreign manufacture is enough to take his certainty from 95 to 100%. It had to be Josie. He’d gotten too close to her secrets and she wanted him gone. There’s only so long one can hide attempted murder, and Cooper has a feeling her crimes didn’t end there. She either brought the gun with her personally when she originally came from Hong Kong or it was brought to her by this apparent “cousin” she’d recently told Harry was in town. God, Harry… he wouldn’t say anything to Harry until it could be neatly proven. It would need to be done in the most sensitive possible manner. It’ll break the poor guy's heart.</p><p>Cooper begins to strip out of his damp clothing, wondering if he should just burn these pajamas, reaching for the nightstand drawer… where? Is the knob? Bending to eye level with the drawer reveals nothing but a small hole where it was screwed in. It had weathered a bullet during one of his dreams but had it also somehow… <em>broken off</em> at some point last night, screw included?</p><p>He looks around on the floor, behind the nightstand, under the bed—nothing. Very strange, but best left for another time. 5:30 was actually a great time to wake up. Maybe it’s the fever but he’s getting some pretty good ideas on how to structure his argument for the job review. His current mental draft revolves around Kantianism and the Categorical Imperative and he’s feeling pretty confident about it actually.</p><p>Okay yes. He knows it’s artificial and probably not going to last terribly long, but he’s going to ride this odd wave of euphoria while he can. He’s not supposed to be in until 7:00, so he could meditate, shower, go down to get breakfast, have a few cups of coffee, sneeze…</p><p>“<em>Hihd’<b>ESHH</b>yuu!”</em> Okay, ow, damn ribs. He was gonna get dressed and “—<em>hhrr<b>RESHH</b>uhh!”</em> (<em>ow</em>) go to work and talk to that committee and fight for his job because, “<em>Hehh<b>YESHHOO</b>!!”</em> (<em><span class="u">ouch</span></em>) that is what James Bond would do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>* Cooper's childhood asthma is canon, as is his history with the Boy Scouts<br/>(both stated in the character's autobiography)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Utilitarianism Makes a Pretty Good Argument But Not If You’re Gonna Faint</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If I haven't lost yall with thousands of words of plot, we're back to H/C Cooper/Audrey stuff so here ya go.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cooper cannot get coffee into his system fast enough. That would help, probably, copious amounts of very black coffee. Even if the steam was bringing the sniffling to such a ridiculous frequency that he was starting to annoy himself and possibly other diners, but at least it meant congestion wasn’t a problem. The fevered exhilaration is still driving him but it’s gradually petering out and he’s beginning to feel like a deranged puppeteer dragging his unwilling body through the motions.</p><p>Around 6:30 Audrey walks into the dining area to find Cooper slumped over his coffee.</p><p>“Cooper, what the <em>hell</em> are you doing?”</p><p>“Audrey!” He bursts into a full smile, looking giddy and almost drunk. “I hoped I would see you this morning.”</p><p>His adorable excitement over her presence tempers the full brunt of her outraged disapproval. She immediately reaches a hand to his forehead, “Jesus, your fever is even worse!” Her hands move to his cheeks, which are bright enough to resemble a rash. “Ohh your face is so red.”</p><p>Her hands are extraordinarily cold, he feels goosebumps spread over his arms at the contrast and tries not to flinch.</p><p>She looks him over, taking notice of the fact that he’s fully dressed in his suit, but it’s a thin veneer he can’t fully hide behind — a couple wisps of hair breaking from their gelled back position, lapel pin askew, tie a little crooked, to say nothing of how stunningly ill he looks. “Do you actually think you’re going to work like this?”</p><p>“Oh, I’m not going to drive, I’ll take a cab.”</p><p>“You think that’s the only reason this is a bad idea??”</p><p>It’s a very guilty look, like a little boy caught doing something stupid and shameful.</p><p>She slips into the chair across from him and reaches across the table to grab both his forearms and deliver a serious look. “Cooper, sweetie, you are <em>delirious</em>.” The term of endearment slips out accidentally but it feels appropriate for a sentence designed to scold but in a gentle motherly sort of way.</p><p>It has the intended effect, Cooper no longer feels like the adult in this situation.</p><p>He holds a hand up. “Audrey, let me explain.”</p><p>She crosses her arms but takes the bait, making a hand gesture that says <em>proceed</em> and a face that says <em>but I’m only humoring you</em>.</p><p>“A couple days ago, I was suspended from the FBI pending review.”</p><p>“What? Why?”</p><p>“I’m being charged with misfeasance.”</p><p>“What is that?”</p><p>“It’s when a law enforcement officer takes an action that, while normally lawful, is done outside of protocol.”</p><p>“What did you do that was… misfeasant?”</p><p>He hesitates, “When I came to get you from One Eyed Jack’s.”</p><p>“Oh god,” her stomach turns, “did I get you in trouble?”</p><p>He has to frequently make little swipes and dabs at his nose with a balled up napkin as he speaks, quick watery sniffles peppered through his sentences. “No, not your fault. My own. I acted on a tip about your kidnapping from your father and went outside of official channels. I crossed the Canadian border with a suitcase full of money because I was told that police involvement would nullify the agreement with your kidnappers.”</p><p>“Oh Cooper, oh no, I… I never should have gone there.”</p><p>“You made a sacrifice to try to help me. I don’t blame you at all. I need you to know that. Also, that’s not the only reason this is happening. There’s another charge that’s more serious, <em>snff</em>, and more absurd. I’m being accused of possession of cocaine that was, evidently, found in my car. For lack of a better phrase, I’m being set up.”</p><p>“Jesus. I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“Today there is a board of FBI officials coming to review my case, and I’m s-<em>suh</em>pos— <em>eh</em>xcuse me…”</p><p>His lips twitch and slacken, eyebrows rise into a wrinkle. It occurs to her what an expressive face he has in general. He folds a nearby napkin around his nose and mouth, turns sideways and crumples into a series of miserable sounding paroxysms.</p><p>“<em>HurrREZSHoo, —<b>AIISHH</b>yoo!!”</em> It takes a few breaths for the last one to come but he makes no attempt to break his position, “Heh<em>YIIHHoo</em>!” He looks dazed afterward.</p><p>“Aww Cooper. Bless you.”</p><p>“Thank you, <em>slff</em>… I forgot what I was saying.”</p><p>“You were making a questionable argument about why I should let you go to work.”</p><p>“A board of FBI officials. I’m supposed to meet with them to defend myself.”</p><p>She puts a hand on top of his, “But, don’t you think they’d understand? You’re extremely sick and people can verify that. <em>They</em> could verify that.”</p><p>“Maybe, but I can’t be sure. I don’t want to take that risk.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“A man should be more than his job, Audrey. But I’m not.”</p><p>“Of course you are.”</p><p>“Not really, not for the past few years. This job, the cases, they consume me completely.” He pauses, thoughtful. “And I like it that way. There are things, <em>slff!</em>… Things that I don’t want to think about. And throwing myself head first into my work—it helps distract me. It’s a vice. I rely on it.”</p><p>She can see what he means, and wonders whether he’s referring to what he told her about the woman he’d loved. His words on the subject were still burned into her heart, and she’d thought about it for a long time after she left his room that day. “<em>She died in my arms. I was badly injured, and my partner lost his mind… Need to hear any more?</em>” He was so personable that it was the first time she realized she didn’t technically know that much about him as a person. The confession had been delivered in an uncharacteristically guarded way, and made her feel obtrusive, as if she’d walked into a stranger’s living room. He’d said he didn’t have secrets, and maybe he didn’t if she knew what questions to ask, but surely there’d be answers that were painful.</p><p>A coughing jag that sounds very wet and rumbly bends him sideways and as he catches his breath afterward she hears a telltale whistling sound that fills her with concern and throws the argument that was convincing her—it did have the logical, ethical and emotional appeals she’d been told to include in her civics essays—out the window.</p><p>“Are you <em>wheezing?</em> …Do you have asthma, Cooper?”</p><p>“I, um—<em>s'dff</em>—I did as a kid. It hasn’t been a problem since then, save for this morning, but I do have an inhaler, which I employed earlier and intend to bring with me, so it’s under control.”</p><p>“Cooperrr.” She sighs, leaning forward and propping her elbows on the table to put her head in her hands, “My brother has asthma, it’s serious business. You cannot go to work, you have a fever so high I honestly can’t believe you’re functioning and you can’t even <em>breathe</em>. You’re risking an attack.”</p><p>“Audrey, you’re sweet to worry and you make very cogent points, <em>snff!</em> I won’t pretend otherwise. Under any other circumstances, I would absolutely stay home from work feeling this poorly. But my job is my life, Audrey, and I have to fight for it.”</p><p>She groans — it’s a sticky situation and he seems stubbornly determined but she has a really strong feeling that this is a terrible idea.</p><p>“I won’t stay the whole day — my review is first thing in the morning.” He checks his watch and takes way too long deciphering it, and the simple action of quickly looking down makes another tissue swipe and double sniffle a necessity, “I actually have to get going pretty soon. I’ll go there, make my case, and come straight back here to recuperate. I know exactly what I’m going to say, I think it’ll fit neatly into the argument against deontology using instead utilitarian ethics, and—“</p><p>She interrupts with a frustrated sigh, “I have no idea what that means.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>s’dff!</em> utilitarianism takes the view that—”</p><p>“No, Cooper, I don’t want you to <em>define</em> it for me, I want you to get back into bed.”</p><p>He downs the remainder of his coffee and winces. “And I fully intend to do so. As soon as I’m done.”</p><p>She gives him a withering look. “I think you might be the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met.”</p><p>The world’s cutest grin — <em>god</em> his cheeks are so red.</p><p>Cooper stands up and his vision blurs into colors, feeling the blood rush from his head—could he please just get through this illness without a syncopal episode? The room spins as he grabs for the back of a chair that is not sturdy enough to prevent someone from falling over, it scrapes loudly over the floor as he stumbles a little bit.</p><p>“Oh my god!” Audrey shouts. Alerted by the commotion, a diner nearby catches his arm and someone appears on his other side ready to support his weight.</p><p>“Jeez, friend, you okay?”</p><p>“Sorry, thank you, stood up too fast…”</p><p>Cooper blinks, out of it but regaining adequate enough vision to see the honest fear in Audrey’s eyes as she hoovers near him, unsure what to do.</p><p>“Audrey you were right I surrender.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. It's All H and C Before the PTSD-Associated Nightmares</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>4k words of fluffy h/c coming your way puppies! Tried to dig into Cooper and Audrey as characters with some emotional fluff.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cooper, back in his room, tie and jacket and belt removed, top two buttons unbuttoned. Mission aborted. Time to officially call in sick. He can’t remember the last time he took a day off that wasn’t mandated from unused vacation time. He’d taken time off after the incident but that had been forcefully encouraged, and, while also due to health reasons, referred to health in a sense that wasn’t physical.</p><p>Shove back that thought now, not the time.</p><p>“Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department this is Lucy speaking.”</p><p>He ducks away from the receiver to clear his throat real quick. “Hi Lucy, it’s Cooper.”</p><p>“Aww Agent Cooper, you did get a cold after all, didn’t you?”</p><p>“I did indeed.”</p><p>“I told you I could usually tell when someone’s about to get sick.”</p><p>“Thinkin’ like a detective, Lucy, <em>snff!</em> Is Harry in yet?”</p><p>“Yes, he’s here, do you want me to patch you through to him?”</p><p>“Please and thank you.”</p><p>He waits, bent over his lap but trying not to incline his head too much because it immediately makes the sniffling worse, thumbing back the pressure between his eyebrows, while Lucy goes through her typical unnecessarily long process of reminding both him and Harry that they’re about to be speaking to each other and then that they’re now speaking to each other, which should be tiresome but is in fact quite amusing every time, even now when his head feels like a swelling balloon.</p><p>“Cooper, what’s up? You coming in today?”</p><p>“<em>Ha</em>rry,” he rasps, sounding, in one word, so pitiful and regretful that as far as Harry’s concerned Cooper really doesn’t need to say anything else. “I wish I didn’t have to say this, I want very badly to come in today but unfortunately my body is not up to the task.”</p><p>“Coop, say no more. I was thinking that might be the case.”</p><p>“I’ll be honest Harry, I’m very worried that not showing up to an evaluation of my own fitness for duty is going to look bad, to say the least.” He takes a moment to cough a few more times than he thought he would.</p><p>“No offense but you sound just about as sick as a dog and you probably look it too. I don’t think that would play so well either.”</p><p>“I think I’m gonna try calling Gordon, <em>snffh!</em> He might be able to help.”</p><p>“How bout I talk to him on your behalf? Something tells me it’d kill whatever voice you’ve got left to have to scream a conversation right now.”</p><p>Cooper hadn’t even thought about how hard of hearing Gordon is, and he would indeed have to speak much louder than would currently be pleasant — Boy is Harry thoughtful. “You’re a prince among men, Harry, <em>snff!</em> I owe you one.”</p><p>“What’re friends for, Coop? You don’t owe me anything.”</p><p>Cooper is extremely touched by the wording of this sentiment and it’s another of the increasingly frequent moments that make him so fond of this place and all the people in it and he’s about zero-point-five degrees Fahrenheit away from getting much too sentimental so he just says, “Thank you, again, so much.”</p><p>“Take care of yourself, okay? Today, tomorrow, however long you need. I don’t want to see you back here until you can go more than sixty seconds without sniffling, got it?”</p><p>Cooper, who was actually just about to sniffle, says, “Okay, I’ll see you then,” and hangs up to resume that sniffle.</p><p>“That sounded like good news,” Audrey comments from the doorway, taking him by surprise. Her arms are filled with more new sheets and blankets and tissues and he looks over at her with fever-bright eyes like she’s the archangel of cotton softness.</p><p>“Good gracious Audrey, you’re a godsend.” She thinks she may just savor this comment and its accompanying groan for the rest of her life. <em>Good gracious Audrey</em>. She needs to stop thinking about this because it’s making her palms itch.</p><p>“I brought two boxes of tissues this time.”</p><p>“You spoil me,” he says, making a gesture to get her to toss them to him.</p><p>The contented sound he makes, upon catching the box and looking down at it, is one he typically reserves for the first sip of a very good cup of coffee. Even the best coffee, Cooper thinks, may just be rivaled by a full box of sorely needed tissues.</p><p>“I am going to make immediate use of these,” he mumbles, husky-voiced, and heads to the bathroom to blow his nose with abandon as she starts, again, to strip the sheets from his bed.</p><p>“Sorry, I’ll help you do that in just a minute.”</p><p>“The last time you tried to help me do this you almost fainted so I think I should probably just do it myself.”</p><p>She makes a good point, he’s still feeling pretty swimmy-headed. He doesn’t realize what a difference there is between tissues and other paper products until he’s wrapped his nose into the former. Substantially softer and better for this purpose. He blows his nose until his tender mucous membranes beg him to stop.</p><p>Audrey has almost finished dressing the bed with new sheets when he returns.</p><p>“Thank you kindly.” He does not resist the urge to climb straight into it and pull a blanket over himself because he feels illogically cold.</p><p>She notices. “Can we take your temperature again?”</p><p>He nods, she grabs the thermometer from the table and hands it over. It’s under his tongue for about twenty seconds when he realizes he’s about to sneeze so he quickly removes it, a hitch in his breath as soon as it’s out of his mouth. Reaches for a tissue but forced to double over into the arm that’s still holding the thermometer for the kickoff sneeze before he can get there.</p><p>“—<em><b>ERRSHH</b>h</em>uh—” It’s especially determined and he only just manages to hastily cup his face into a tissue, one handed, before he’s taken by its followup. “<em>er<b>rrREISHH</b>-shuh!</em>” Two abbreviated breaths, “hih’<em><b>EZSHH</b>yue!!”</em></p><p>“Ohh Cooper, poor baby.” Audrey coos, because that may have just been the most pitiful thing she’s ever seen. She brushes her fingers down his arm.</p><p>He shakes off the muddled feeling with a slushy sniffle, about to return the thermometer to his mouth when a second wave of hazy itchiness stops him.</p><p>He drops the thermometer and sodden ball of tissue over his lap in his haste to grab a fresh one, irritation tugging an eyebrow and a lip upward.</p><p>“Again?”</p><p>“Hih<em>YEIH-hoo</em>!”</p><p>“<em>Four?”</em> Audrey asks, surprised. He shakes his head no as his chest swells.</p><p>“HUH-<em><b>IISHH</b>yoo!”</em></p><p>“<em>Bless</em> you, five??”</p><p>Still no. He holds up one finger and shivers forward with a finalizing, “<em>EHH<b>YEISHOO!</b>”</em> A guttural, frustrated noise is tacked on as an epilogue. His ribs hurt and so does everything else.</p><p>“Whoa." She counts on her fingers, long past the words being repeated enough times to cease to fully make sense. “Bless you bless you bless you bless youu.. bless you blessyou.</p><p>“Thankyou thankyou.” He is much too leaky to continue speaking so he blows his nose, <em>hard</em>, and needlessly apologizes about it.</p><p>“Did I just witness a record?”</p><p>“I would sooder classify that—<em>s’dff</em>— as two sets of three,” he says, wiping away tears and looking around for that thermometer.</p><p>She finds it. “Semantics.”</p><p>“There was a break in between.” He insists as she shuts him up by shoving it into his mouth. A wry exchanged half-smile. Silence broken only by his sniffles. Audrey’s hands feel like ice when she touches him, he’s getting goosebumps again and thinking about how badly he wants to put on his massive tan trench coat. It’s a wonderfully warm coat. It would probably be weird to wear it in bed.</p><p>The look on Audrey’s face is a mixture of sympathy and mild horror as she peers into the glass. “Jesus, Cooper, a hundred and four point five… I’m calling Dr. Hayward.”</p><p>She starts to pick up the phone and he puts a hand on her arm. “It’s okay, a fever is—”</p><p>“—a good thing, Audrey. I know, that’s like the third or fourth time you’re said that.”</p><p>Is it? Huh. “Well it’s true. <em>Slff!</em> One-oh-four isn’t cause for alarm.”</p><p>“Then what in your opinion <em>is</em> cause for alarm? <em>Two</em> hundred and four??”</p><p>He’s annexed by a bout of coughing that hurts badly enough to make him think it’s probably time to use that inhaler again but he’d prefer to wait until Audrey’s less concerned.</p><p>He clears his throat and straightens up to be confronted by the soulful, representative eyes of said concern once again. “One-oh-six or oh-seven is where I’d start to worry.”</p><p>“Well <em>I</em> am worried now.”</p><p>“I know,” he says, but the chills are about to make his teeth start chattering and it’s really undermining what he’s telling her. “But it-t really is okay. I run a very high fever every time I get sick, <em>ssnf</em>, it’s nh-normal for me.”</p><p>She sighs, mostly placated for now, fear being displaced by sympathy. “You’re shaking, by the way.” She picks up the throw blanket from the end of the bed and drapes it over his shoulders. “You’re burning up, you feel cold?”</p><p>He nods and takes the edges of the blanket with his own hands, snuffling and wrapping it a little tighter as he’s racked with a full body shudder. “When a fever resets a body to a higher s-standard temperature, all temperatures below that standard will feel cold.”</p><p>The man is burning through blankets and still speaking like an encyclopedia.</p><p>“I have a sweater in that drawer, do you mind grabbing it?”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>slff</em>, also Audrey, did you… take the knob off of the nightstand drawer?”</p><p>“No?”</p><p>“It’s missing, it’s the strangest thing.”</p><p>“Cooper the one right here?” She opens the drawer, demonstrating its existence.</p><p>He blinks in disbelief but sure enough the knob is there, right where it belongs. How incredibly strange. “I guess that was a dream,” he mumbles, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t. Maybe it was? The line dividing reality from… whatever else tended to feel indistinct and malleable in the case of dreams within dreams or waking visions, but significantly more so now when he has dwindling confidence in his own judgement.</p><p>“This the sweater?” She asks, holding up a black turtleneck.</p><p>“That’s the one.” He slips it over his shirt and cocoons himself back up, still shivering. She helps tuck blankets around him.</p><p>“I can’t tell if this is a good idea, isn’t it just going to make your temperature higher?”</p><p>“Maybe, but a ndegh—<em>s’df!—neg-lig-i-ble</em> amount.” Very difficult word, negligible, and it hardly even has any n’s.</p><p>She rubs his arms like he’s a puppy she’s drying off in a towel and grabs the tissue box for him when he reaches for it and he feels equally pathetic and cared for. He’s weathered being this sick, or nearly this sick, alone before and it was a vastly inferior experience.</p><p>“That was a very special story you told last night Audrey. <em>Snff</em>. I feel lucky that you shared it with me.”</p><p>She looks down at her lap. “I feel like I can tell you anything.” Except, of course, that she’s secretly kind of in love with him and it’s getting worse. This is not helping. It’s been wonderful and intimate in ways she didn’t anticipate—taking care of him, and feeling like in some small way she can repay him for literally <em>saving her life</em>—but it certainly isn’t helping her love him any less.</p><p>“Also, <em>ssff!</em> Your father may be flawed but he does love you, Audrey, and while his priorities don’t always seem to be in quite the right place I can tell he cares about you.”</p><p>“I know that but… I guess there’s just more I want from him, that I’m not sure he’s capable of giving me.”</p><p>“That’s certainly valid. But I don't think you should give up on him.”</p><p>Nobody her age could say these kinds of things to her — no one her age is this sweet, this patient, this wise. Certainly no one she’s met. Was he like this when he was her age? Are there other Coopers out there closer to her own age? Will she have to wait until she’s much older? Will boys she knows grow into men like this? It doesn’t seem possible.</p><p>Was he really just going to come into her life and treat her with more kindness than anyone has before, sew himself into her heart and then… <em>leave</em> — how <em>could</em> he??</p><p>Meanwhile Cooper looks so out of it she can’t tell if he’s about to yawn, sneeze or pass out. Undoubtedly all three in one arrangement or another.</p><p>Resigned to the inevitable, Cooper assumes the pitched-forward position before the momentum forces him there. “<em>Hei’<b>IISHH</b>yue!”</em> It seems it would hurt his ribs a little less if he could reduce the physical response a little but “—<em>A<b>AISHH</b>ue!”</em> Of.. course the main issue was the violent scissoring of breath within his chest which “Hr<em>rr<b>RISHH</b>yuu!!”</em> <em>Ugh</em>… couldn’t much be helped.</p><p>He registers her hand on his shoulder, thumb tracing invisible circles, and idly wonders how long it’s been there. Maybe he hadn’t noticed through the several layers of textiles that separate his skin from hers. He doesn’t mind. It feels less like she’s pushing boundaries and more like she’s reaching across a chasm recently formed by the depths of his current sorry condition, to the same place she already was. Was that okay, for him to not want her to pull her hand back when she does? To wish he hadn’t made her feel that even friendly touch was entirely unwelcome? Or was it for the best?</p><p>…Is he hurting her, will she feel hurt when he leaves? And if so, is there anything he can do that wouldn’t make it worse, or is every action he takes, every word he says to her making it worse regardless of what’s being done or spoken? He’d had his fair share of unrequited loves, he knows how it feels.</p><p>Cooper sincerely hopes that Audrey doesn’t love him.</p><p>It’s a comfortable quiet, but Audrey picks up on an element of sadness in his silent reverie. “Hey, are… are you okay?” She asks then, with concern. “I mean, that’s a dumb question I know you’re sick.”</p><p>“It isn’t a dumb question. I’m okay. Are you okay, Audrey?”</p><p>“Now that is a dumb question.” Audrey feels like she’s about to cry, and she’s not entirely sure why.</p><p>“No it isn’t.” Gentle, as always.</p><p>God, is she really going to cry just from being asked whether she’s okay? Why did no one in her life ask her that? Why didn’t her father <em>ever</em> ask her that? What gives Cooper the right to ask her now when he’s just going to leave?</p><p>“Um,” her voice cracks immediately and gives her away. “I just, um,” Already with the tears why is she always crying in this room, “I just don’t want you to leave, Cooper, I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”</p><p>“That’s okay, we don’t have to.” He clarifies, “We can if you want to, when you want to, but we don’t have to.”</p><p>“Not right now.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>She’s mostly swept her emotions downward until she says, “But thank you, for asking.” And that, somehow, hearing herself say that, makes her sad in a way that might have more to do with her than with him. A thought for later, in her own room. She exhales a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.</p><p>He offers her the box of tissues, part of him clearly trying not to grin about it, one little smile line at the corner of his mouth forming and then disappearing, which makes her laugh. If he could just stop being so goddamn cute for five minutes… He’s been an absolute mess for the last two days and he’s still been such a <em>cute</em> mess the whole time.</p><p>She briefly harmonizes into his sniffle chorus and takes a tissue. No sooner does she withdraw her hand than Cooper rushes to grab more tissues himself.</p><p>She’s physically closer to him now so he’s forced into some contortion to angle himself away from her. “<em>Hrrr<b>RIIZSHH</b>oo</em>, <em>err<b>RRUSHH</b>shue!”</em> Sharp, throat scraping, the very sound suggests pain. A high-pitched gasp of an inhale segues into a final sneeze that bends him over even further. “—<em><b>HERRSSHH</b>yue!!”</em></p><p>“Bless you,” no longer feels like enough to convey sympathy for such a miserable display to Audrey but she still says it anyway.</p><p>Oof, it truly is fatiguing every time he has to do that. It’s really not helping the distracting pressure building behind his eyes. He’s beginning to feel like a steam engine. His body still feels cold but his head and midsection may as well be filled with molten lava, and the two sensations combine in a very confusing and unpleasant manner. Any feeling of needing to downplay his symptoms in Audrey’s presence is gone. At this moment there is no one he’s more comfortable unraveling in front of.</p><p>Once he’s given up on blowing his nose he brings a hand to his face to attempt to massage the aching around his eyebrows.</p><p>“Aww do you have a headache? I can get you an aspirin?”</p><p>“I appreciate your willingness to fetch me thi'gs—<em>snff</em>—but I try not to take pain relievers.”</p><p>“Well you look like you could use one if ever there was a time to make an exception.”</p><p>He does not intend to make one. The fever, as incredibly dizzy and awful as it makes him feel, is doing its job and a medication that reduces fever would only fight that. Cooper is accustomed to listening to his body and if it needs to become a broiler oven to combat whatever virus has invaded, so be it.</p><p>The sniffling has become less of an effort to breathe—that ship has sailed—and more an effort to not let anything run down his face.</p><p>“I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”</p><p>“Oh no, really?”</p><p>“Dreams kept waking me up.”</p><p>“Your vision quest?”</p><p>A smile. “My vision quest.”</p><p>“Dream anything useful?”</p><p>“Actually yes, yes I did. A few things. You were in one of them.”</p><p>Audrey has a pleasant heart palpitation. “I was?”</p><p>“Eight-year-old Autumn Meadows, I believe, technically. You showed me your secret room.”</p><p>“Then what?” She’s dreamt of him too but he’s certainly not a child in her dreams…</p><p>“Then I got a nosebleed and stumbled into another dream.”</p><p>“I can show it to you in real life if you like. The secret room, I mean. When you feel better.”</p><p>He coughs a couple times in a way he knows will lead to more, manages, “I would like that very much,” shields himself from Audrey with his arm and gives into a good few seconds of deep, chesty coughing that makes blood rush to his head with the effort and depletes him of oxygen to the point of wheezing as he catches his breath.</p><p>“Where’s your inhaler?”</p><p>“Trench coat pocket,” he says breathily, trying to swallow.</p><p>Audrey retrieves the device—the same exact kind as her brother’s—and starts vigorously shaking it for him as she walks back.</p><p>“Cooper can you exhale as much as you can?” she prompts, removing the cap.</p><p>He nods and does so as she hands it to him, his fingers fumbling to press downward on the little chamber.</p><p>“Hold your breath for ten seconds afterward if you’re able to.”</p><p>He supplies a weak thumbs up, holds his breath until he sees stars when he closes his eyes, and pants back into rhythm as he shakes the container to ready it for the next round of this ridiculous looking game.</p><p>Audrey’s hand doesn’t leave his shoulder until he’s done and starting to breathe normally, looking spent. Cooper resumes sniffling, grabs a tissue. Are his hands shaking? He examines one.</p><p>“It’s the albuterol,” Audrey explains. “Have you used an inhaler before?”</p><p>“I’m new to it, they didn’t really have them when I was a kid.” He must have been adorable as a child. Probably an extremely good kid, maybe with a mischievous streak that never went too far.</p><p>“What did you do then?”</p><p>“They had some medications but treatment was mostly preventative. <em>Snf!</em> I’d avoid things that triggered it. Sometimes if it was too cold it’d get to me and I’d just have to stay home.”</p><p>“Aww poor little baby Cooper.”</p><p>“It was pretty bad back then, <em>snff!</em> Kept me awake at night sometimes. My mother would rub Vick’s on my chest and stay up with me. All night if she had to.” The image grabs hold of Audrey’s heartstrings and yanks so hard it hurts.</p><p>“She sounds like a good mom,” Audrey offers quietly.</p><p>“She was.” She really was. She had died when he was 15, when he’d still needed her.</p><p>Audrey does pick up on the past tense of the statement. Should she ask him further? Is he too vulnerable right now — would it be taking advantage in some way? She wants to hear every single thing about him and his past and especially the women who have shaped him, but just as she starts to formulate a follow up she recognizes the look on Cooper’s face.</p><p>There’s dread sewed into his rising eyebrows, exhaustion in the belabored motion of folding tissues over his face, surrender in the necessary stronghold his hands make over the tissues. “<em>Iiih<b>YISSHH!</b></em>ue, hur<em>r<b>RIZSHHyuu</b>!!”</em> The exhale before the next sneeze catches in his throat, a quick snippet of a wet cough he doesn’t currently have the time or the breath for.</p><p>“<b>Heih<em>YIHHHOO</em></b>!!” He has to refocus his vision after that one and it's followed by insistent coughing.</p><p>“Bless your heart Cooper, god you’re so sick,” she whispers.</p><p>The trio of sneezes were productive enough that he has to soak through three more tissues afterward. Gosh what a sorry state of affairs he’s in, no one should have to see another human being like this.</p><p>“Audrey,” he says through protesting vocal cords and noncompliant consonants, “you’re more than welcome to stay as long as you like—<em>sxff!</em>—but I’m afraid I’m becoming lousier and lousier company. I think I might be unconscious pretty soon here. <em>Snf!</em> I’m really not feeling very well at all.”</p><p>She does not point out that he’s still wearing his work clothes and might want to change out of them, since he’d bristled, understandably, the last time she’d suggested he remove clothing.</p><p>But she does say “Oh Cooper,” sweeps locks of dark hair back from his glistening red forehead, and continues in a very soft voice, “Sweet sick baby… you don’t need to entertain me.”</p><p>Having mentioned his mother makes Cooper realize there are nostalgic and deeply psychological, and perhaps even biological reasons behind his enjoyment of being fussed over. With Audrey’s permission and touch and some words he doesn’t mind at all, he lets gravity act on his heavy eyelids and sinks his head into the pillow, blankets bundled around him haphazardly.</p><p>“That’s my key on the table, <em>sslf!</em> feel free to take it and come and go as you please.”</p><p>“Okay.” The fact that he trusts her enough to give up custody of his keys and to give her jurisdiction over this room implies a desire to have her continue being here, taking care of him… it makes her face feel hot. She attempts to help make some sense of the blanket layers and tuck him in without disturbing him too much, and sets the tissue box in easy reach.</p><p>“Thank you Audrey,” he mumbles with a few final snuffles.</p><p>She cradles his right cheek with her hand and he emits a short involuntary sigh in response. She might actually spontaneously combust.</p><p>“Get some sleep cutie.”</p><p>His response is a very sluggish, very sleepy thumbs up.</p>
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